Twice the Misfortune
by Flere821
Summary: A meeting that was not meant to happen. Additional factors introduced, and the ripples shall change the world. Someone who had failed one world met up with a person that would become a Hero, and may one day forgive herself. ToaruVerse AU.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Toaru Majutsu no Index, or any of its related franchises.

Side note: there WILL be spoilers from the Light Novels in this fic. I highly recommend you finishing reading all of the Index novels on Bakatsuki first, before reading this story.

Yes, _every_ one of them. From the 22 volumes of main story, the Side Stories, and the New Testament ones.

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><p><em>Chapter 1<em> – 'The Meeting That Was Not Meant To Be'

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Kamijou Touma slept. And as he slept, he dreamed.

He floated in the border between dream and reality, where images and memories shuffled past in a haze. This is no lucid dream, or a trance achieved through meditation… he had no control over what he chanced upon, anymore than a sparrow can choose its path inside a howling tornado.

Dressed in his school uniform of white shirt and black pants, Touma saw a misty figure slowly forming ahead of him.

Someone who is him, yet at the same time also is not, stood in front of him. The outline is blurred, rendering the person in front of him a wavering image. Familiarity, like that of meeting a friend who one had not seen in years, warred with hostile edginess – a negative feeling that tries to warn Touma the one in front of him cannot be trusted; that none other in all of existence can compare to how necessary the one in front of him needs to be _destroyed_.

The figure extended its right arm, something even more vapour-like compared to the rest of its body. He, or maybe even she, beckoned to Touma to take the hand.

Hesitantly, Touma reached out with his right hand, tingling as if drawn to the hand offered like magnets.

Their hands touched, and a new storm of images assaulted him.

_It was a time when Kamijou was just a young child. Shunned by others, this child who was named 'The Plague' became the scapegoat for any and all misfortune in the area, until someone tried to stab Kamijou, seeing this child as the source of his problems._

_Touya, the child's father, driven desperate by how easily superstition can take hold of human hearts sent his only offspring into a city where Science ruled supreme. A city where superstition held no sway, where hard facts trumped empty theories._

_The child grew up, becoming a teenager who at times stole away the hearts of the opposite sex without even noticing it. Misfortune plagued this teenager still, but nobody went to the extremes of a attempted murder again._

_Kamijou was dragged into one incident after another, with barely a week's rest in between. A girl who held the knowledge of 103,000 grimoires, Saints who held powers beyond human limits, and one who's said to wield the Power above that of even God's are just some of the enemies Kamijou have faced._

_In the end, Kamijou was struck down… the power of negation robbed by another and the sealed away menace took the chance to break free. Faced with foes both within and without, Kamijou failed where a Hero, in another time, had triumphed._

_The human who had the semblance of the might of Archangel Michael as her's to control took no chances, and flung Kamijou into the Void Between Worlds once she had what she desired. Kamijou will perish, and at a place where return and retaliation is both impossible_.

_Little did he know, forces beyond her comprehension plotted. The fool with a third arm can have her false paradise... for what is one world in comparison to absolute freedom from meddlesome Gods, and countless other worlds out there to conquer?_

_Eventually, Kamijou ended up in a world quite similar to the teenager's own, yet not exactly the same. It would not do for the host body to be destroyed, at least not before a new world is reached. _

_The unseen foe howled in frustration upon arrival, for even as Kamijou no longer possessed the seal and its power, this new world's seal interfered. Eliminating the troublesome warden will have to wait._

_No matter; this other seal is weak, a pitiful shadow of what it can potentially be. Soon certain events will come to past, and history will repeat itself._

_And when that time came, the invisible prisoner promised to devour any and all that would impede its Rebirth._

Startled by the venom the series of pictures had contained at the end, Touma blinked and returned to the much calmer maelstrom of images prior to contact. The spectre in front of him shifted its image, limbs fusing into the torso and elongating at the same time. Reptilian features began to show itself, until the boy with Imagine Breaker stared eye to eye against a dragon that looked like the mirror image of the one popped out of his own right shoulder against Aureolus Izzard.

With a roar that was more _felt_ rather than _heard_, the jaws of the dragon opened and tried to crunch down on the spiky-haired boy. With an astonished yell, Touma swung his right hand in what he thought was a futile attempt to stop himself from being eaten by a nightmarish monster.

The dragon collided with the panicked blow, and along with a sound like glass cracking the head was torn to shreds like ripped fabric. The pieces floated down gently like feathers in still air, and Touma sighed in relief...

Until he found a floating pair of eyes which did not get torn apart like the rest of the dragon, glaring coldly at the young man responsible for leaving it in this state. Bright crimson eyes, each the size of a grown man's head shined with malevolence; but that was not what shocked Touma.

The reflections on the eyes' surface show a similar dragon, interposed over his image. While his human face is showing disbelief, the draconic shadow over it snarled soundlessly at the eyes in front of them.

Anger soon flowed into understanding, before resulting in grudging acceptance. Touma didn't know **how** he knew, but it felt like these two have reached a agreement – like 'the enemy of my enemy is my ally, at least until we have the opportunity to tear each other apart without other worries…

Violence can wait until then.'

His right hand abruptly burned white hot, and with a light that surpassed even the brightness of the midday sun everything was consumed.

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Touma opened his eyes.

The afternoon has waned, the sun beginning its descent in the autumn sky. He was seated on a bench at a park, and for reasons unknown to him he decided to take a quick nap before continuing on his shopping trip.

It felt almost like he was possessed somehow, with the idea he needed a nap coming from out of nowhere.

Touma checked the clock on his cellphone. With a sigh, he gave up on trying to run to the supermarket for the discount sale, knowing even if he can barely make it on time something will happen to slow him down. A kid accidently batted a fastball to his head, running into a stray dog, or seeing some thugs trying to chat up a girl despite her obvious intent she's not interested… frankly, the list of possible reasons is practically inexhaustible. He'd be here until night has arrived and made way for dawn before he'll even be a quarter of the way through.

"Fukou Da…" Touma muttered, his catchphrase blown away by the wind.

_Ba-dump_.

_Ba-dump._

With a frown, Touma felt sure he heard something. The feeling intensified as a sharp stab of pain rippled from his right hand up through his arm.

Suppressing a wince, Touma tried to isolate where the sound is coming from. Standing up from the bench, he looked left and right for anyone – or _anything_, for that matter – that might be the possible cause.

Touma started to walk in one direction, with what felt like his arm have been turned into a compass that will direct him to the cause of all this. Or a more apt description, a guided missile that is homing onto the source of the problem and eliminate it.

Soon a familiar sight came into view: the hospital where he is a frequent resident in as he gets into incidents time and again. With an unjustified conviction this is the place, Touma continued his path into the building.

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"Kamijou Touma?" A surprised voice called out to him.

Turning around, Touma found the Frog-faced Doctor approaching him. Apart from the white coat typical of people in his profession, he also had a nametag with a frog's sticker on it, as if telling everyone that yes, he knows about the nickname that everyone calls him.

"Here again? Surely you didn't get into another mess this soon after your last discharge? It has not been even a week yet." The old doctor joked, a slight smile on his face.

Touma faked a scowl in reply. "Why do you jump to the conclusion whenever I'm here at the hospital I'm the one wounded, doc? I could just be visiting someone, you know?"

"But more often than not, you're the one that's in the hospital bed when you come here." Heaven Canceller pointed out.

"Fair enough." Touma conceded, continuing to walk in the direction his right arm seem to be pointing him towards.

"So who are you visiting? The Shirai girl you visited last time was discharged weeks ago, and to my knowledge no one that has ever visited you when you're in the hospital here is currently in need of medical attention." The doctor mused, nodding at some of his colleagues and nurses as he walked by.

"Honestly, I don't really know." Touma confessed, to which the Frog-faced Doctor raised a eyebrow in response. "Would you believe me if I say I just had the feeling I needed to be here?"

"Probably. I've seen crazier things." He answered. "And I'll believe the cause of that wasn't because of something like being hit in the head either."

The two of them eventually stopped outside a room. Both of them recognised it as the one Touma was relegated to whenever he was placed in this hospital.

"Is anyone currently using this room?" Touma asked.

"There shouldn't be." Heaven Canceller replied. "Is whoever you're looking for in here?"

"I'm about to find out."

Touma knocked on the door a few times, and then opened it to step inside.

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Half-lying, half-sitting above the blankets on the bed is a teenage girl. She looked to be the same age as Touma, and in the same uniform as the one in his school. The only difference was she had black pants used normally for boys rather than the skirt for the girls.

Both herself and the clothes she wore looked like they were pushed to the limit of that the clothes can handle. And considering the school uniforms in Academy City uses textile technology that would have made it usable (if not suitable) from desert conditions in the Sahara all the way to the snowy plains of Russia, these clothes can handle a lot.

Her black hair was messy, and just a bit longer than shoulder length. The cause of that messiness however was probably less to do with being exposed to harsh environments, and more to do with how she herself just doesn't bother too much when it comes to her hair.

Her half-asleep face when they first came in jolted to awareness, showing eyes similar to Touma's own in colour if not quite in shape. Her chest wasn't the size girls like Misaka Mikoto would be envious about, but neither are they at the level what Aogami Pierce would call 'Deliciously Flat'.

She stared at the two who entered into the room, and then looked at her surroundings.

"Can you two tell me how I got here?" She asked. "Because last I checked, I wasn't in Japan, let alone Academy City."

"And you are…?" The old doctor asked with a frown. Touma himself also wanted to know just who the girl is; he's sure he's never seen her in his life (something that even with his memory loss he's absolutely sure – for reasons he cannot fathom), yet she felt like a close relative of some sort.

"I'm..." The girl said finally, after locking eyes with Touma for a brief second. Unbidden, a name came out in a whisper from Touma's lips along with her own:

"… Kamijou Touko."

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*End Chapter 1*

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><p><strong>Author's Notes<strong>: This may or may not be continued in the long run - I haven't planned this fic to its conclusion.

If I do continue with this, I'll be playing hard and fast with canon events and/or mechanics. Originally I planned on writing this after NT is finished (or when we find out whatever is sealed by Imagine Breaker in LN canon), but who knows how many years that will take. I had enough of waiting and decide to just wing it, substituting whatever that stomped Fiamma at his strongest with another being.

This story is something my muse had come up with, mixing a plot bunny months old by this point with crack-fic components, more than a good dose of the infamous TvTropes (ingredients include but not limited to: Large Ham, Shout Outs, and Purple Prose) and did so under the influence of watching Madoka Magica. I **know** this will not be a top-tier story, considering I'm just writing this for fun, and I'll be throwing many things into the story 'for the lulz' or 'because I felt like it'.

This story is – or _will_ be – a testament to what I like a crack fic to be: crazy, but not to the point of incomprehensible (aka, not breaking your brain from over-dosage of cracky-ness). And generously filled with humour and awesomeness, preferably overshadowing the crack.

So sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.


	2. Chapter 2

_Chapter 2_ – 'Resonance'

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The Frog-faced doctor left the room, citing he needed to get the paperwork sorted out for her stay here at his hospital. Academy City had no records of anyone named 'Kamijou Touko', and as far as he knew the boy that frequently ends up getting treated here does not have any family members who also attend school in this City of Science.

After getting her assortment of cuts and bruises treated (mostly minor injuries, really), her clothing taken away for cleaning and Touko changed into the hospital robes, the nurses left and Touma was allowed back into the room.

The two of them sat silently, with Touma trying to put his thoughts into words and Touko rested on her bed, eyes closed and appearing at ease. Only the sounds of other nurses and patients occasionally walking past their room can be heard. Ambient noise aside, there's nothing else that touched this scene between the two of them.

"You…" Touma finally asked in a subdued tone. "You're the one that sent me that dream, aren't you?"

Touko's eyes shot open in surprise at his question and looked towards him; it wasn't the one she was anticipating.

"Do you seriously think that, or are you deliberately trying to annoy me?" She asked back, her lips pressed into a thin line and her eyes narrowed.

Touma gulped. Her expression reminded him of Fukiyose Seiri's, right before she was annoyed beyond her limits and started to make the Idiot Trio of their class pay for whatever they did.

"You should know full well Imagine Breaker doesn't have that kind of ability. What had happened was a resonance between our right hands, trying to deal with the fact the seal belongs only onto the right hand of 'Kamijou'… and all of a sudden there's arguably two of them in the same world."

"… What are you talking about?" Touma's getting confused.

"What's your name?" Came the cryptic reply.

"Huh?"

"Answer the question." She spoke slowly, her face turning towards him. "What is your name?"

"Kamijou Touma." The now thoroughly bemused young man told her.

"'Touma', huh…" Touko said thoughtfully. "Heh. With the hidden meaning of 'Invisible Demon', no less. And I thought fate had a sense of irony when they hid 'Invisible Child' in my name." She chuckled ruefully, shaking her head in mild exasperation.

"Do you planning on making sense any time soon?" Touma sighed. He's starting to wonder if he ran into another weird woman – meeting someone like Orsola Aquinas once in a lifetime is enough, surely?

"You're the one not making sense." Touko told him bluntly. "Everything I told you so far, you should have already known instinctively. The meaning behind what we called 'Imagine Breaker', the 'resonance', the Secret beyond secrets we kept away from magicians… Why do we even need to have this conversation?"

"I have no idea what you are talking about." Touma said, bringing one hand up to massage a headache.

"… You're serious." Touko looked like she can't believe what she is seeing in front of her. In any other situation, the shocked look on her face might have been called 'comical'. Right now though, Touma could only describe that expression as_, _putting it mildly_,_ unpleasantly surprised.

"Did you seal away your own power and forsaken your responsibility…? No, I refuse to believe it. You can't be someone that would willingly damn the world if it meant you can live out your lifetime in relative peace." Touko said with conviction. Almost like she's talking about herself.

"Wait… the fight with _Index Librorum Prohibitum_." Touko's voice took on a note of dark understanding; like she found out something she wished with all her might that it's not true. "The holder of the 103,000 grimoires had used _Dragon's Breath_ in that battle. It's not impossible that you got affected by that attack… Oh, _**shit**_, this is not good."

That unladylike expletive filled with frustration surprised Touma… or would have, if he didn't have a gut-wrenching feeling something bad is about to happen.

"You lost your memory, didn't you?" Touko whispered, her face a mirror of Touma's dismay that someone had found out something he swore to never expose. "_Dragon's Breath_ is the only thing we've met that could have led to this. _St. George's Sanctuary_ doesn't go deep enough into the mind to erase everything, while _Ars Magna_ might be diverse in application but ultimately superficial in how it can shape the world…"

"Just who the hell are you?" Touma leapt out of his seat. "How do you know so much about me?"

_And just how did you find out I've lost my memory?_

"I would have thought it is obvious by now… though without the knowledge what's tentatively called our 'birthright' gave us, I can see why you'd still be confused." Touko wanted to sigh and vent her anger at the same time. She know she's – ironically – fortunate for once in that she landed in a world where a seal is still capable of sealing _It_ away, instead of unleashing a terror on a unsuspecting world unprepared for conflict beyond what most humans can dream of.

Still, that doesn't make her feel any better about the current situation.

"I'm _you_, from a alternate universe. I fought the leader of _God's Right Seat_, and in what Aogami would call a 'Final Battle' I was defeated. A world perished, remade in the image of what a mad woman thought to be Heaven on Earth and humanity was purged of 'evil'. To prevent a last-minute retribution or a miracle, I was thrown into the boundaries between universes and left to die in a place where a survival is… or rather, _should_ be… impossible."

The dream from earlier flashed back to Touma's mind, with every word from Touko's mouth making it clearer.

"_It_ managed to save me… not from anything like mercy or compassion, but because not even _It_ can survive the Abyss if the host is destroyed. I ended up here in a familiar room in your world, then you came in with Heaven Canceller. The rest you know."

Silence reigned in the room. Even the ambient noises from before seem to have faded away, giving the impression all that is left in this world is this hospital room with the setting sun sending its last rays into the room, and the two who occupied it.

Touma was staggered by what he's told. An alternate version of him from a different universe? His memory loss exposed?

Yet he cannot deny it, any more than he can deny his right hand holds Imagine Breaker. Now that the 'resonance' is pointed out, he can feel a connection with the girl in front of him, brought to the forefront of his mind instead of lurking in the back of his mind. Minor indications about her emotional states and physical wellbeing just 'clicked' in his head, though how that is possible he couldn't even begin to guess. And chances are, she knows the same things about him.

"Alright, I guess I can believe this is really happening…" Touma muttered.

"… But this _still_ doesn't make any sense. How am I getting all this information? Telepathy? And shouldn't Imagine Breaker negate supernatural phenomenon like this?"

"What makes you think this is 'supernatural'?" Touko asked. "The fact 'normal' humans can't do this without going through something like the Esper Development Program? Humans are capable of accomplishing some amazing feats on their own, and things like esper abilities and magic is merely a distortion of our true potential.

"For example... regardless of Science or Magic, neither side has yet to create 'life' on the same level as its creator. Create artificial life, yes, but whether it is clones or homunculi the potential they can reach cannot match that of a normal person. The Radio Noise project that Misaka was the victim of should have made it obvious, with the Sisters unable to even live to a lifespan same as that of any other esper… I won't go into the Level differences, it's not like we care about things like power capabilities when it comes to what defines a person.

"Yet, 'normal' humans accomplished the creation of life, when Science and Magic have failed at doing so: The birth of a child, something that would occur in any culture you'd find on this planet. Unlimited potential, a child can grow up to be the Greatest of Saints, or the Foulest of Villains given the right situation… Even matching Gods would not be out of the question. The impossible and the inexplicable do not belong solely in the realm of the supernatural.

"Forget about the 'truths' told to you by others, and believe in only what you find after think things through yourself. Accept nothing at face value, for the moment you stop thinking is the moment we stop being alive.

"And frankly, if you didn't suffer from memory loss you should know all that already." Touko sighed. "Long story short, our power is 'natural' as opposed to 'supernatural'. It'll take forever to explain the _how_ of Imagine Breaker anyway, let alone the rest of the Secrets… damnit, I never appreciated before how much instinctive knowledge can help at times like this."

Touko then reached for the glass of water on the table next to her bed. Talking that much would probably make anyone thirsty.

"Wow, you certainly can talk a lot, huh?" Touma's impressed by just how wordy that speech was just then. The content was heavy stuff to process through, and chances are he'll need to ask her to explain further eventually.

He still wished she doesn't go on about his memory loss like it's a casual matter, however…

"No more than you do. Do I have to repeat word for word what you said to Accelerator back when you stopped the 'Experiment'? Or how about that time with Tsuchimikado during Angel Fall?" Touko replied, a glint of amusement in her eyes. She's confident that even in a different world, the wielder of Imagine Breaker probably has gone through similar situations as she did.

Touma laughed sheepishly, unable to deny his own tendencies to preach excessively.

"Oh, and who did you mean by 'Heaven Canceller'? You mentioned someone by that name before, right?" Touma asked curiously.

"… Guess the Frog-faced doctor never told you what other people called him, huh." Touko noted wryly. "A lot of people call him that because- **URK!**"

The girl on the bed clenched her teeth and her eyes snapped shut, her left hand moving to suppress her right. The space around her right hand became warped, with the sight like mirages on a hot day.

However, mirages like those don't normally give out a feeling of dread, and sheer malevolence directed out towards all others in the immediate area. Both of them seem to hear a shriek fading in and out of their ears, like how a television might fizzle out when around a Level 5 Electromaster venting her ire via throwing around lightning.

"_**Enough**_**.**" Touko commanded, her voice bring every ounce of willpower she has right now into suppressing the growing presence. "Even if I no longer possess Imagine Breaker_, I __**REFUSE**__ to let you overwhelm me_."

_Never again, not after what happened the last time you did so… _Touko silently vowed.

Touma's right hand closed over her's, and the psychic scream vanished with the menacing aura instantly. There was no sound of glass cracking, which had characterised so many of his negations before.

Both of the Kamijou present found that somewhat unnerving, for one reason or another.

"… Is this something else that would take forever to explain to me?" Touma queried, his perplexed look earlier replaced with the serious face that would only be seen in situations like life-or-death incidents.

_Not quite_, Touko thought. _I could explain that I can't just regrow Imagine Breaker in my right hand because the world can only handle the burden of one of those at a time, and on this planet you're more worthy to bear that power compared to a failure like me from a different world._

_I could also explain that Imagine Breaker is just a add-on, and not the main function of our right hand. The hand being the best medium for a supernatural power makes things really __suck__ when one such power, something that human understanding can barely define, is actively trying to take over your hand so 'It' can, to put it bluntly, tell God to 'Fuck Off' and inform Aleister Crowley to go screw himself as 'It' breaks free of all restraints._

_Oh, and there's also the cliché ending of the world falling into ruin with It's ascension, don't forget that._

_All that probably won't take more than a few hours for you to comprehend. It's just using words to convey all this is inefficient, not to mention who else might be listening. I wouldn't put it past him to bug the entire city so nothing that's spoken escapes his notice._

Everything she said out loud so far in this room, she's sure Aleister already knows – or would likely already have guessed. She's walking a fine line as it is, trying to get Touma to understand without letting the more crucial information fall into the wrong hands.

"I'll tell you everything. Eventually." Touko promised. "The 'resonance' might work, but I'd like to avoid relying on it: every use of it increases the chance of 'It' breaking free. You don't need me to tell you that's a bad idea, right?"

"And what's wrong with just telling me using words?" Touma tilted his head with a questioning look.

"Walls have ears…" Touko gave a meaningful glance to her surroundings. "Call me paranoid if you want, but I'm not convinced just talking is safe enough."

"…" Touma pondered the situation, before finally sighed and sat back down onto his seat.

"Okay, we'll do it your way. It's not like I can say you're exaggerating, considering I've seen walls having eyes." Touma joked, remembering when Sherry Cromwell attacked Academy City. Touko smiled slightly, having understood the reference.

"Well then, let's get back to what we were talking about before." Touko said pleasantly. "The Frog-faced Doctor is also known by the title 'Heaven Canceller' to many people. His medical skill is of such calibre he's said to be capable of negating heaven's hold on a soul and return his patients to the living world. People speak his name with awe and reverence, both in how far he would go for people that he has declared to be his responsibility, and the skills of a genius which borders on the realm of insanity that none would even dare to recreate."

"Hmm…" Touma furrowed his brow, a look of concentration on his face.

"I know you might find that hard to believe, considering how unassuming he looks." Touko continued, seeing Touma's expression. "But really, after things like having your right arm cut off and sewn back with no scars left behind, is what I'm saying really that unbelievable?"

"No, I'm not doubting his skills." Touma answered. "What has got me confused me is, well…"

Touma looked like he has trouble trying to find the right words, before decides to just go and say whatever is on his mind.

"You're an alternate version of me, from another universe right? If the other 'me' is female, shouldn't the Heaven Canceller from your world be a woman? But you still talk about the doctor like he's a man…"

"…" Touko blinked, before groaning out loud in exasperation: "Seriously, _that's_ what got you all confused?"

She brought her hand up and placed it over her face, in the timeless pose that expressed the feeling of his or her inability to believe what is happening in front of the person performing the gesture.

"… Was it something I said?" Touma, once again, had a look of utter bafflement on his face.

"I've already said I'm from an _alternate_ universe, you blockhead." Touko wanted to laugh, but can't quite bring herself to do so. "Not a _mirror_ universe. Besides, can you really imagine someone like him in a female body like an old granny's?"

Both of them took a moment to picture such a thing, before shuddering in sync.

"Point taken." Touma tried to drive the remnant of that thought from his head – through excess (not to mention forceful) application of the Imagine Breaker, the hand that shatters illusions, to his head.

"Really now, I'm appalled the two of you would think that way." Heaven Canceller opened the door and stepped inside, while the room's occupants flinched at his voice. "I really can't think of why such an idea seems so horrible. Then again, if I was a woman I might end up trying to perfect the knowledge for eternal youth just to avoid being all wrinkly in my old age…" The Frog-faced Doctor mused.

"So, the paperwork is complete?" Touko asked the old doctor, being quicker to recover from the shock than her male counterpart. Unspoken was the question "_So you heard everything, then?_"

"To a extent. I'll have to get someone to make up some more identification for you, like set up paper trails and so on." Heaven Canceller shrugged. "I can't just fix you up and then throw you out to have you fend for yourself right?"

"That's much appreciated." Touko thanked the doctor with a smile. Guess some things never change, despite being worlds apart. "If I'm allowed to make a few calls, I think I can help you with that. There's a few people that I think would be willing to help me out."

"Hmm?" The doctor appraised his patient on the bed. It isn't obvious, but the girl here was a bit more acquainted with the Dark Side than the boy, it seemed. Nothing to the extent of a certain albino esper who's been in the Darkness from a young age, but neither is she completely ignorant to the other side of the world. Decades of experience showed him the minute signs of someone that is used to deal with a life that's inherently unfair, but the girl did not hate anyone or anything for it.

The same can't be said to a lot of other people Heaven Canceller have met over the years.

"Very well. Hopefully we can get you sorted out within a few days." The old doctor agreed. "Oh, and Kamijou Touma… visiting hours might not be ending anytime soon, but surely you have other things you need to do? Making dinner, meet up with friends, or such matters?"

"… Oh damn it! I still have to go shopping!" Touma's eyes widened as he realised a disaster might be brewing. It won't do for Index to be left hungry for a long time, painful experience have taught him that much.

Touma made to leave, but paused and turned back to look at the girl that probably understood him better than himself did. At least at this point when he doesn't have the majority of his memories, anyway.

"Don't worry about me." Touko advised him. "It won't be right for me to take you away from your own life and problems to focus on my ones. I'll get by somehow."

"But-"

"Go already. This Kamijou Touko isn't a weak damsel that needs a man to support her everyday needs." Touko scowled. "I'm not saying you should just forget about me. I'm saying you have other priorities and obligations, too."

_After all, no need for you to take care of a failure like me. I had already let one world down, I'll never forgive myself if I'm the cause of __another__ world suffering the same fate as my one did_.

"… Alright." Touma nodded reluctantly. He had completely missed the way Touko's eyes tightened earlier ever so slightly, sharp pain and self-recrimination flashing for an instant. "I'll try and think up something to say to Index, so I'll be able to come visit tomorrow. Bye."

Touma left, before Touko can stop him and ask him to expand on his last words.

_Index? What did he mean by that…? Is he talking about the 'Index Librorum Prohibitum'?_

Touko was reminded with what had happened to the nun dressed in white she had met, back in her world.

Even as she conversed with Heaven Canceller, about things like identification, her mind-boggling situation and so on… Touko could not put the living grimoire library out of her mind. She dwelled on the end of their first meeting, and what can be called her first mistake; which in hindsight, was among many in the series of events that lead to the end of all that she held dear.

While Touko lamented the loss of the knowledge that Kamijou Touma should have, and considered if the only difference between her and him was that he made the one critical mistake what ruined everything at the beginning of the end rather than at the climax… she can't help but wonder if it actually was for the best that things have turned out this way.

After all, it appears he managed to succeed where she did not, despite the memory loss: saving the girl with perfect memory who was convinced nobody would follow her into the depths of hell, let alone willing to try and drag her out of it.

It certainly beat what Touko did in her case. Blinded by the same knowledge she berated Touma for no longer having, she felt she damned Index as seriously as if she struck her down personally with power that can shatter worlds.

-][-

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*End Chapter 2*

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><p><strong>Author's Notes<strong>: If you haven't figured it out by now, I'm shoving a character based on a genderbent Touma from a alternate universe into canon universe, and will proceed to complete throw canon events off the rails with something like butterfly effects. The title for the fic is a reserved indication on how deeply I'm planning in sending the setting of ToaruVerse into the territory of 'Absolutely Frakked'.

Expect the ending, if we ever get that far, to be along the lines of what Type-Moon is capable of pulling off (in terms of tone, if not quality); anyone who has played Tsukihime or Fate/Stay Night Visual Novels would probably have a good idea on how this might turn out.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer**: 1) I do not own Toaru Majutsu no Index, or any of its related franchises.

2) The opinions of the characters appearing in this fic do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the author.

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><p><em>Chapter 3<em> – 'Of Friends and Lovers'

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Kamijou Touma really should have seen this coming.

He, who many consider the person with the worst luck (outside of raising romance flags anyway; there, he undeniably possess the best luck) to ever attend a certain high school that shall continue to be unnamed in the dialogue and narrative, didn't even consider this possibility. Which in hindsight the outcome was obvious, and he took it as one more proof he is just a idiot (or that there's some force of nature out there that takes a sadistic pleasure in watching him suffer so).

Of course, the possibility in question here is that two days after their first meeting at the hospital, Kamijou Touko transferred into Touma's class.

Many of the males, Aogami in particular, had directed accusatory gazes towards Touma for never told them he had a… well, not exactly the most beautiful girl ever, but certainly good-looking one as his 'twin sister'. The moment she entered the classroom made that obvious.

Touma, along with the rest of the class, noted she's tall for a girl, probably around Fukiyose Seiri's height. Touma himself hadn't noticed that when they first met, with Touko lying on the hospital bed made it a bit hard to correctly gauge her height.

Eyes the same colour as that of Touma's looked out towards the class as she introduced herself, framed by the kind of messy black hair similar to Touma's. Her hair now looked a bit more presentable than when she was in the hospital, but still looked like the owner of the hair gave up half way in her attempt to try and make it look better than normal.

Gone was the aura of a injured but still proud fighter, and in its place is a feeling of calmness. Like Fukiyose, she's also shrouded with an air of no-nonsense around her, and probably just as likely as the Iron Wall Girl to deal out physical chastisement when suitably annoyed.

Touma's classmates sighed in collective relief that at least it wasn't a twin brother that ended up in their school: better another possible addition into that (un)lucky bastard's harem of sorts than have a second Kamijou Touma waltzing in and steals the collective hearts of the ladies.

And before anyone comments on how blood-related sisters shouldn't be a viable romance option…

-][-

Lunch break on the same day as Touko's transfer into Touma's class:

"_**Daaaaaaaaaamn it**_, Kami-yan!" Aogami Pierce howled as he grabbed Touma by the collar on his shirt, no longer able to suppress his rage. "First Tsuchimikado, now you too? It should be illegal to suddenly have access to a imouto-type out of the blue!"

_I want a sister route too!_ Aogami lamented.

"… I don't really know if I should be happy that Kami-yan's finally awakened to the wonders of a imouto, or be sickened that Kami-yan actually had it in him to go for a blood-related sister." Tsuchimikado Motoharu sighed theatrically. "Even I draw the line at routes to do with inces-"

"Yeah, right – if Maika was blood related to you can you honestly say you won't dote over her as you are right now?" Touma shot back. He didn't bother to correct them that Touko is his 'twin sister', not a 'younger sister' – it's not like they'd care about minor details like that right now.

The cover story the two of them have decided on beforehand is Touko is his twin sister, which is more feasible than something like a cousin consider how alike the two of them are. Touko also opted to keep the their cover story simple, telling anyone that asks too much that it's a family issue how they two of them don't see each other much or even talk about their sibling; most people would be too polite to ask further, and no-one can blame either of the Kamijous if they refuse to reply to a tactless question. Better to let others draw their own conclusions than think up any elaborate explanation themselves; it's less likely in the long run to slip up and make any mistakes this way.

Still, some of these conclusions wasn't quite what Touko was expecting people to end up at:

"So you don't deny you're actively trying to complete the sister route?" Aogami persisted while Tsuchimikado let out a strangled voice and denied – loudly – that he hasn't gone _that_ far with Maika and on the purely hypothetical situation he did go that far he most definitely won't do the same if Maika was blood-related to him.

Nobody was really convinced by Tsuchimikado's words at this point. Even if it's probably true.

"Of course not. My taste in women isn't as… _wide-ranging_," Touma gave a pointed look at Aogami, "or as _exotic_," The look was now directed at Tsuchimikado, "as you people might think."

"Riiight." Aogami doesn't seem too convinced by Touma's words. "Of course things like the two of you falling into a illicit relationship which led to the estrangement prior to your sister's return is a scenario that only happens in 2-D. Even if we're trying to bring to life a harem scenario for you, having a 'forbidden love' sister route that's a heartfelt reunion after years apart, with added bonus of 'absence makes the heart grow fonder' just sounds too cliché-"

**SMACK!**

Before Touma can even try and destroy the illusion Aogami seems to be fantasising about, two other people had already beaten him to it; Fukiyose delivered a fierce right jab at the blue-haired teen's face, while Touko drove a kick deep into the same victim's stomach. Aogami reeled back from the assault, dazed but still looking relatively unharmed by the other two girls.

If anyone was looking at Touko's direction hoping for a fanservice shot, they were sadly deprived of such a sight; she wore shorts under her skirt, having been long used to needing to get physical on occasion and this way she won't have to worry about her modesty.

"I already gave up on you ever having a normal thought pattern, but please keep that kind of comments to yourself." Fukiyose grounded out. Some things shouldn't be joked about.

"And for the record, my idiotic brother over there isn't my type." Touko added, in a tone no less dangerous than Fukiyose's.

"So who's your type then…?" Tsuchimikado wondered out loud, then flinched as the two girls glared at him. Touma placed on hand on Tsuchimikado's shoulder, his face expressing a frosty smile and his head had a cross-popping vein which is also starting to show on Fukiyose's forehead.

"Wait, wait! I have a sister too so I know full well the rule we don't go after our friend's sisters!" Tsuchimikado said hurriedly. "I'm just curious, I swear!"

Potential landmine topics at hand, such as 'The only reason Touma doesn't think of Maika as a viable option was because he was too busy with other conquests', and 'Tsuchimikado Motoharu in certain circles is known as a liar and a backstabber; his oaths mean nothing' was avoided with Touko's input:

"It probably won't hurt to say what kind of person I like." Touko shrugged, much to the surprise of everyone present. She felt it was probably better to get this out in the open early on anyway, since she's not in a mood to handle love confessions by random students at this point; after spending about a week recently fighting on and off during a World War III, a Civil War before that, and how she's still warring with a presence trying to breaking free from her control have made her feel tired beyond anything she had to deal with before. Touko don't think she have the time for love right now, even if she do want a relationship.

"If I want a partner, then I expect her to be my equal; I don't want to be in a relationship where I have to do most of the work, or be cuddled like I can't do anything right." Touko listed her various criteria of what she thought to be a good match for her. "Both of us had to have something to offer the other, complementing each other's strengths and patch up whatever weaknesses we have.

"I don't expect a love that burns with passion, but I do expect to get along with her just as much as everyone else, if not more.

"Things like intelligence, looks, physical ability… those come second to the things I've said earlier. Though I'll admit I'm superficial enough that I probably won't accept anyone who doesn't at least have average looks like me." Touko conceded. "Does that tell you enough of what kind of people I like?"

"Somewhat…" Tsuchimikado said slowly, still processing the information gathered. "But there's one thing I'm interested about…"

"Yeah, I prefer girls." Touko said, already guessing what Tsuchimikado is going to ask. She didn't make a mistake when she referred to her partner as 'her' when she said what she wanted. "Hence why I'm not interested in Touma, **if** being blood-related doesn't stop us already. Sure, he's not that bad for a guy, but like I said: Not My Type."

"But…"

It looked like Tsuchimikado is still trying to wrap his head around that piece of information. Having said that, he's taking this better than many of the other boys in the class, who looked crestfallen that their chance for romance is just as bad as before.

"Mind if I ask why you prefer girls?" Touma inquired. The only other girl he knows that's interested in other girls is slightly unhinged, with how she stalked her 'Onee-sama' and the extent she would go for her. For his own safety he felt it might be better to try and find out if the alternate vision of him is something like a evil twin, preferably _before_ she went stab-happy on someone. And by 'someone' he means himself, as knowing his luck the victim _will_ be him somehow if things do go off the rails.

"I can't understand just what you boys are thinking, like how you probably don't have a clue why girls do certain things at times." Touko explained. "It's just so much easier to deal with someone you can understand, right? No communication problems, or exasperating things that happens time and again he (or she) does that you just can't comprehend why he (or she) would do that. It makes life so much easier that way, being able to understand your partner."

On one hand, what she says make sense… on the other, Touma just doesn't get how same gender relationships can work. Trying to think about it only gave him a 'error: does not compute' feeling.

"Wait…" Aogami swallowed. "Then your feelings on yaoi are…?"

"I see nothing wrong with it." Touko tilted her head, not quite understanding why Aogami looked so horrified all of a sudden. "Really now, I'd be a hypocrite if I'm alright with girls having relationships with each other but sees guys with each other as disgusting, right?"

"_That's not right!_" Aogami all but shouted. "Guys doing that with guys is just…" Words seem to fail to express how **wrong** yaoi is to him on a primal level.

Still, at least Touko doesn't seem like a Yaoi Fangirl; that would make her the antithesis of everything he stood for, the supporter of a brand of madness that even he would not touch.

"You seem to be alright with shotas and crossdressers, Aogami." Touma commented, recalling the list of things Aogami is enamoured with that he spouted on August 31st.

"Those don't count! They're mostly feminine-looking enough to be acceptable!" Aogami countered. "Really, part of the allure to them is the temptation of knowing they're deadly choices on the inside but the picture of perfection on the outside-"

With another blow to the head by Fukiyose, Aogami fell silent in mid-rant. The fact he crumpled to the ground might also have something to do with that.

"Now that we have that over with," Fukiyose gave a sharp look to Tsuchimikado, as if daring him to disagree, before looking back at Touko. "I'd just like to say one thing."

"Yes?" Touko took Fukiyose's gaze head on without backing down in the slightest.

"I'm willing to be friends, and the rest of us girls in the class probably feel the same too." Fukiyose started to say. "But if you try anything forceful on us girls…"

"I think I can hold back my urges to glomp anybody I find to be the epitome of attractiveness." Touko remarked dryly and crossed her arms. "Really now, I'm appalled you're putting me on the same level of guys that can't control themselves when they see someone with a pretty face – or a generous bust size – walking by. Does this have anything at all to do with me being related to my brother?"

"Well, no…" Fukiyose seems to accept Touko's words. "Not entirely, anyway."

_Hey!_ Touma's indignant protest at how low his standing is in her eyes was ignored.

"So, friends?" Touko offered out a hand to Fukiyose, a small smile on her face.

"Friends." Fukiyose took hold of Touko's hand, shook it firmly and returned a smile of her own.

The class erupted into a frenzy of applause and cheering, with practically everyone happy at how their new classmate had begun to make friends. Having said that, the guys are more subdued, knowing they've all been 'friend-zoned' by Touko if they can even reach that level.

In the midst of the furore Touko whispered to Fukiyose, "Though if I'm honest, I probably won't mind if you _do_ want to be more than just friends…"

Startled, Fukiyose shot a sharp look towards Touko. The smirk Touko is showing indicated it was a joke, but Fukiyose decided maybe it might be prudent to keep a clear head when dealing with this Kamijou as well.

It appears the hearts of the ladies in this school isn't as safe as everyone had assumed…

-][-

-][-

"Glad to see you're fitting in with everyone in class." Touma said as he walked along the sidewalk with Touko after school had ended. Despite indications otherwise, what happened today is nothing too far out of the norm for Touma's class – unusual things practically begged to happen with people like Touma, Aogami and Tsuchimikado in the same class, with their effects compounded by Fukiyose's presence at times.

"You do realise I _have_ been with them just as long as you have, right?" Touko said dryly, flicking a stray lock of hair away from her eyes. "It's not like I'm introduced to complete strangers here. Oh sure, there's a few here and there whose gender is different to what I'm familiar with, but their personality isn't too far off from what I remember. Getting along with them isn't too hard."

"… You have a point." Touma conceded.

The two of them are walking home together because they're planning on going shopping for groceries later on, and Touma needs to go back and retrieve his wallet that he has forgotten. Currently, Touko's staying with Komoe-sensei and Musujime Awaki since she's still trying to get the paperwork to the girl's dormitory sorted, and she felt it's a good idea to help out with the housework. It's better to let Touma guide her to the places with the best deals for the time being, until she's used to the differences between here and what she remember.

"In retrospect, maybe we should have gone with the 'cousin from your father's side' route…" Touko muttered. "I had forgotten how insane Aogami's fantasies are, and I certainly didn't expect the Haru-chan of this world being even more of a pervert than the one I'm used to. Chances are we would have gotten less flak if we were thought to be a bit further related…"

_Too late for that now_, Touko shrugged.

"'Haru-chan'?" Touma raised a eyebrow. "Do I even want to know why you call Tsuchimikado that?"

"Hmm?" Touko glanced at her new 'brother' of sorts. "Oh right, different names and all… so what's Tsuchimikado's name here?"

"Tsuchimikado Motoharu." Touma replied. "But the name thing isn't why I asked."

"You're asking if I was in a relationship with Tsuchimikado back in my world?" Touko sought confirmation. At Touma's nod, she continued: "No, I wasn't. As you have probably figured out by now, Tsuchimikado back in my world is a girl, and with the name 'Haruhi' rather than the one you're familiar with. Still tall and blonde, but her 'dangerous' side from being a magician is a lot more noticeable. It's like she's bipolar, shifting from easy-going to knife-like determination quickly. If someone liked the 'Onee-sama' type of girls they'd probably find her figure one to die for; which isn't much of a exaggeration, considering she only had eyes for her little brother and made that very clear to anyone that's dumb enough to try and court her. I'd have to be insane to go after her."

Touko chuckled, remembering the times they hanged out together. Or more precise, the trouble they got themselves and some of the others in their class into, on more than one occasion. The 'Idiot Trio' might not exist in her world, but Touko and Haruhi made more than enough trouble to keep things interesting.

"So Maika is a guy over there as well?" Touma asked. "Tsuchimikado's not-blood-related sibling." He clarified, before Touko asked him if that was the person he's talking about.

"Yeah. Wanted to be a butler for reasons I never quite found out. Given a few more years he might have made quite a lady-killer too." Touko remarked.

"Maika here decided to become a maid due to Tsuchimikado's influence." Touma said in a tone that left no doubt that it's because of her older brother's fetishes. At least 90% of the time Maika kept the fact she got on better with her brother than what most siblings are like, and only declared 'her brother is the best brother in the world' and such bro-con comments once in a while; much better than her brother's attempts to hide his sis-con tendencies.

"I'm not surprised, really." Touko deadpanned. Both of them gave a small laugh at that.

"So what about others? Is the Aogami you know a girl too?" Now that they're on the subject, Touma wanted to know a bit more about just what everyone is like in a different world; even if he lost his memory of what those people are like before, he's still curious on how some people can be different to what he knew them as.

"No, he actually is pretty much the same as the one I know of. Fetishes and all." Touko shrugged. Both herself and Haruhi tolerated having Aogami around, as he knew better to try and hit on them. "Though does your Aogami have the rumour he's actually the 6th Level 5, the only 'Illusionist' ever reaching that Level? Supposedly he's in hiding after he pissed off Mental Out – the 5th Level 5 – so spectacularly she actually has a bounty out for him captured alive."

"That's the first I've ever heard something like that." Touma admitted.

"Apparently some people are saying there can't be anyone _that_ obsessed with fetishes, so it must be a sham. That he's deliberately trying to make girls stay away from him, and to make himself look as far away from he was like as possible." Touko smiled at how absurd the rumour is. Those people knew nothing about just how warped the human mind can become, not to mention people tend to make irregularities in life conform to their understanding and expectations. "The 6th was well-known as a playboy, with people guessing he's in deep trouble because he tried to toy around with the 5th's feelings… trying to prove he's the better trickster or something like that. I'd hate to be whoever the 6th turns out to be, if that ojou-sama wants him alive so she can personally put him through hell in her revenge."

"I didn't think you'd know this much about gossip and rumours." Touma noted offhandedly as the two of them entered a park; it's a shortcut to get from his dorm to the school that he takes frequently.

"Regardless of how much of a tomboy I might be, I'm still a girl you know." Touko informed him. "I still chat with other girls occasionally. It's something that comes natural to us."

"If you say so." Touma gave a noncommittal reply. It's not like he knows a lot about how girls think, despite notorious claims to the contrary on how he's fooling half a dozen girls at once at any given time.

The two of them continued to chat as they made their way through the park, continue to speak about what some of the people from Touko's world is like:

Yomikawa, the teacher of the class next door to theirs and a member of Anti-Skill, was still a female and nothing changed noticeably.

Surprisingly, the Komoe-sensei Touko knew instead was a seemingly young boy, and looked like the incarnation of all the cuteness a shota possessed. The rumours about he's the end result of research on eternal youth actually gave Tsukuyomi Kotarou _less_ trouble than the rumours he's in a steady relationship with Yomikawa-sensei.

Nevertheless, even with those rumours Tsukuyomi-sensei had constant troubles with fangirls given in into the intent of 'I want to take him home with me!', trying to glomp him and rub their face in the sheer cuteness. How he's still keeping up with his teaching responsibilities in spite of all that might class as one of the Seven Mysteries by itself.

Fukiyose, well, she's another unchanged factor. Though with Touko and 'Haru-chan' being less obsessed with things like bunny girls and other such unhealthy topics compared to their counterparts here, the main source of her ire was Aogami – and it lead to the bloodbath whenever someone annoys her being something of a weekly ritual, rather than a almost daily one in this universe.

"And before you ask, yes she's just as well-endowed as the one you know." Touko said clinically.

"I wasn't going to ask that." Touma said defensively.

"Really? I was under the impression males place a lot of emphasis on that kind of things. You probably just have better self-control than others and is too polite to ask." Touko shrugged. "And from what I've heard you're just as bad as the other two when it comes to these things."

"I'm not as far gone as they have." Touma argued. "Not even I would have tastes that are borderline criminal, considering they're interested in girls that look to still be in primary schools, not to mention younger sisters."

"You're probably right that you're not on the same level as they are." Touko admitted, to Touma's relief. Her next words however made him groan once more: "You've probably gone even further down the path of corruption then they have. In our school alone you're being linked with Komoe-sensei, Himegami Aisa, and Kumokawa-senpai. Fukiyose's debatable whether she really doesn't like you, or is just a tsundere better at escaping notice than most. Don't even get me started on other one-off encounters I've been hearing about."

Touko glanced over at Touma, who's spluttering at the claims she's been firing at him. "Those two at least only limit themselves to talking about that kind of things – wait, maybe in Tsuchimikado's case he actually went further than that," Touko mused. "But at least he's faithful enough to stick with one target. None of them is actively trying to build a harem…"

"And you think I am?" Touma wanted to give in to despair. He has sunk to a new low if even a different version of himself thought he was a total scumbag. And if he really wanted to argue the semantics, they _are_ trying to build a harem – just not for themselves, but for him if their words back when he met Last Order were in any way accurate. "I'm surprised you're willing to think that a version of yourself is some kind of unscrupulous fiend that preys on the vulnerable."

"You're a guy. It's to be expected even if you're a version of me." Touko said that like it's the most obvious thing in the world. "You might be a selfless Hero that put others' concerns above yours, but men are still a risk factor and can't be fully trusted with matters to do with girls, with actual good guys being exceptions rather than the rule. I'm actually happy that you're not as bad as you could be – which just meant you're better than something like a creepy stalker, not that you're a reliable guy that can be trusted with a maiden's chastity." Touko added the last part, after seeing Touma cheer up at her praise.

"Was that last part really necessary…?" Touma felt like he's been stabbed by her comments like a porcupine full of spikes. Considering all the things she's talking about guys, it's not hard to believe she favour girls to be the ones to have relationships with.

Touko stopped in front of a vending machine nearby in the park instead of replying. "You want a drink? My treat."

One, this is because after talking all this time she's starting to get thirsty. Two, she felt maybe she's been a bit too hard on Touma. Plenty of time to berate him after she finds conclusive evidence he's been doing something bad, before that she should at least give him the benefit of the doubt.

"Wait, that vending machine is…" Touma started to say, before she found out herself what he was trying to warn him about.

"Huh? Why isn't my drink coming out…?" Touko pressed the button again and again. Then realisation dawned on her. "You have got to be kidding me!"

"Yeah, that one's broken." Touma confirmed her suspicion. Back in her world she ran into malfunctioning vending machines at times, but this one wasn't supposed to be broken. Yet another difference to remember.

"Fukou da…" The words that formed Touma's catchphrase came out of Touko's mouth. Though compared to Touma's own resignation that life had again conspired against him, Touko's words was half-filled with something like anger or annoyance.

It also occurred to Touma that in the last few days he was with her, she hasn't really gotten into anything unlucky or needed to say those words. Must be because she lost her Imagine Breaker, or something like that.

"Why in the world is there a broken vending machine here? You'd think they would have fixed it by now, if even you know about it and started to avoid buying from this particular machine." Touko fumed. Her right hand shook like she is itching to drive her fist into this piece of junk that just took her money.

"Blame it on the Tokiwadai students. They've been using a trick to get free drinks from vending machines for who knows how many years…" Touma's explanation was interrupted by the memory of when he 'first' met Misaka Mikoto here as this one ate 2,000 yen of his money…

And of Touko, instead of following her urge to let her fist be the vessel of her anger, delivered a kick to the culprit that scammed some of her meagre income. Much to her surprise, a drink came popping out of the machine like it's supposed to when money is inserted into it.

"Huh. I didn't know this would work…" Touko said as she bent down to grab the drink. "'Red bean soup'? Oh well, it might not be what I had wanted, but at least it's better than something like 'guarana & natto juice'… why are you palming your face like that?" Touko asked Touma as she turned to face him.

One reason was how Touko just did what Mikoto normally does here for a free drink without even realising it. The other reason was to prevent himself from seeing what had been under Touko's skirt; he had standards, as unlikely as it had sounded to some people, and if he actually got excited looking at someone that's arguably his sister like any other girl it would have made him want to crawl into a hole and die.

It was a good thing that Touko wore shorts under her skirts, anyway. He was saved from pondering a dilemma that probably would not have bothered his two other guy friends.

"Misaka, along with who knows how many other Tokiwadai students, does that all the time for free drinks here." Touma sighed. Really, is none of the girls he meet normal? "That's probably why this vending machine is always broken; even if it's fixed it'll just be damaged by all the kicking they do."

"… Oh." Touko's tone sounded tight for a moment there.

"Is something wrong?" Touma asked with a tinge of worry. "You didn't sound too good just now."

"It's nothing." Touko replied, fighting a grimace off her face.

With a frown, Touma tried to connect to the link the two of them shared due to the 'resonance' and see if she's really as OK as she is saying to be. All he had got was something that indicated Touko's not happy, before the mental equivalent of a slap to the face forced him out of that connection.

"Girls don't like guys that are pushy, you know." Touko glared at him. "Don't you know the meaning of privacy, Touma-kun?"

"I'm worried about you." Touma said, a bit more heated than usual since he's still trying to recover from that hit. It stung like any physical attack, and there's now a jab of pain that he felt to originate from somewhere in his brain.

"That alone still doesn't give you the right to know what someone doesn't want you to know." Touko said bitingly. She considered going back and revising on techniques to prevent mind reading they've gone over in class, something she had thought she didn't need because of Imagine Breaker when they had gone over it in class a while ago. "Even when we snuck into Misaka's room to find out more about her, it was because someone had _died_. Knowing her role in the 'Experiment' was something in addition to just being worried about her; lives were at stake then!"

Touko clenched her hands, so hard that her arms are shaking. Both of them can remember how #10031's corpse looked like in that dim alleyway, splattered blood reaching eye-level and the body looked more like it belonged at a butcher's than anything that used to be a human.

_Sickening_. That was a word they both had used to describe the scene. They also had both actually vomited, upon stumbling onto that horrifying visage.

Touma then realised Touko's too focused on being angry at him that she's no longer blocking the connection. This link is something new to the both of them, hard to control with their inexperience and neither had the mental training to deal with anything like this. And with Imagine Breaker, most of Academy City's mental training probably won't have worked anyway.

Thanks to those factors, nothing stopped him from realising seeing one of the Sisters die like that had hit Touko harder than it did to him; and not entirely due to the claims that women are more emotional than men either.

"I'm sorry that I tried to go inside your head without permission." Touma apologised. "I'll know not to do that from now on."

Better to smooth the whole thing now before it gets ugly – his time with Index and Mikoto taught him that, if nothing else. Also, the emotional pain that leaked over the connection at the memory of #10031's death contributed to his decision; he wanted to make it stop, not just because it's uncomfortable remembering all this for himself, but also he doesn't want Touko go through something like this. Really, no one should have to remember those horrors.

"… Apology accepted." Touko said as gracefully as she could under the circumstances, tried to calm herself down and not be as tense. She's still angry, yes, but she also knows it's irrational to keep grudges when it won't solve anything.

"I'm sorry for yelling at you too." She continued, trying to make peace. She felt that while she's perfectly justified at making her displeasure of uninvited access into her mind clear, her reaction might also have stemmed from being reminded of the Misaka Mikoto from her world…

"_Ne, Touko-san…" Mikoto said as she huddled closer to the older girl, seeking warmth in the cool night air. Smiling, the two of them took their gaze from the city lights shining below their vantage point, pinpricks of light that rivalled the starry sky above. "Sometimes I wish we could stay like this forever…"_

_Leaning in closer, the distance that they could already feel the flow of air from each other's breathing vanished, soft lips pressing together in a kiss that spoke volumes on how much they cared for one another…_

With the sound of a gasp, Touko was shook out of her reverie. Belatedly, she found her focus had slipped in her anger and reminiscence, and she didn't suppress the knowledge flowing through the connection she had with Touma.

The gasp had come from his choking mouth, as Touma was driven to his knees by the intensity of the emotions that he was receiving. The feelings that Touko had for her Mikoto was something he had never held towards anyone else, at least not in what his memory know of right now. Longing when they're apart, security when they're together, and happiness in knowing your partner held absolute faith in you and in how she returned every feeling you had towards her.

All of that had an undercurrent of grief, singing a counterpoint that contrasted greatly with the joy experienced. Sadness in knowing such things will never come to pass again, and self-loathing in knowing you had failed her. A promise broken, an oath to return to the one you loved more than any other not related to you by blood gone to pieces. Shattered like the world she left, one that is ruined by war.

Above all those was the feeling of guilt. Guilt in how she could not stop Fiamma of the Right from completing her Ritual. Guilt in letting everyone who had trusted her down.

Most importantly, Guilt in how she was supposed to die, to atone for her mistakes and put an end to everything, was thwarted by _It_. Given a second chance at life she did not deserved, not when so many others had fallen due to her incompetence.

Upon Touko was the burden of failure, of losing everything she had held dear. Everything she had been talking with Touma about her world had been a double-edged sword: immersing herself in a happier time, yet every scene a reminder of what she had lost.

Touko was hurt, more in the mind than in the body. The façade she had put up in front of everyone was exposed for the illusion it was.

If he had enough processing power in his brain not taken up trying to deal with these emotions, Touma would have blamed himself for not have considered the implications of what Touko had been through when she had talked about her defeat that led her here. He was blind to her pains, had worried more about his own problems like how Index might despair over her saviour losing his memory, an experience she herself had gone through.

Many would have not blamed Kamijou Touma for thinking of himself first. But Kamijou Touma is not among those many people.

With a feeling like a heavy gate slamming down, Touma was released from feeling Touko's agony. The sweat running down Touko's head was an indication of the herculean effort to keep the link closed, however Touma missed this sign as he collapsed onto the ground, hyperventilating from the experience.

"… How much have you seen?" Touko asked in a hoarse whisper, not having the strength to raise her voice.

"… Enough." Touma said from his sprawled, face down position on the ground as he forced air into his lungs. The overhead sun shining down felt out of place to him, giving the world a surreal look like the light is masking all the suffering people have gone through. "I won't give the excuse that I didn't actively try to look, and I got all that from a passive feedback effect… I could have shut all that away and given you some privacy. But I didn't."

"But you didn't." Touko agreed, sinking down onto the ground next to the vending machine. Her voice sounded like she wanted to get angry, but just didn't have the energy for it.

"… How can you bottle all that up and still function normally?" Touma asked as he sat up slowly. His body is still shaking from what he had felt.

"Necessity." Touko replied, her voice hard. "Either I go on with life, or become catatonic. And with _It_ around, wallowing in self-pity is not a option. Given a chance,_ It_ will break free from my control, and what happens next is a 'Bad End'."

"Doing that can't be good for you though-" Touma began to say, before he was dragged up from his sitting position and now staring into Touko's furious eyes.

"**Shut up.**" Touko warned him, voice cracking and looked somewhere between breaking into tears and exploding into rage. "You might _know_ what I am going through, but you don't _understand_. Right now it's like you memorised an answer to a test question, but you have no idea _why_ that is the answer. **Don't** talk like you know what is best for me."

"I might not know what's best for you, but I **do** know that you can't continue like this." Touma shot back in a voice filled with worry. "Continue like this will break you one day. Talk to someone… well, that might be hard considering the number of sensitive topics revolving around this… you can talk to me about this, right?"

"You can't handle this." Touko said in anger, reminding him how he collapsed earlier. "I don't want anyone, _especially_ you, to poke your nose into this. This is none of your business."

"Considering I also feel what you feel, you can't really say this is 'none of my business'." Touma retorted. "This also affects my wellbeing. And what do you have against me being involved?"

Touko released her grip on him and pushed him back, instead of replying. Touma stumbled before righting himself, in time to watch her turn away.

"I'll shut off the connection between us the best I can. I suggest you do the same if you want some semblance of peace of mind." Touko advised him, starting to take a few steps away from him. She doesn't want to see his face for a while, and she doubted the shopping trip will go well even if they still go together. They've said too much against one another to get along right now.

"We both know this isn't about my complaint that I'm affected by your emotions." Touma said, the scowl evident in his voice to Touko even though she's facing away from him. "And you never answered my other question: Why are you dead set on going through this by yourself?"

"It's none of your business."

"It _is_ my business."

"No, it's not."

"Yes, it is."

"I'm the one that made the mistakes." Touko grounded out through clenched teeth. "Therefore I'm the only one that has to suffer through the consequences. You might be another version of me, but you didn't screw up like I did. There's no reason for you to get involved."

"I'm getting involved because I want to; isn't that alone a good enough reason?" Touma countered. "Or are you telling me you left Orsola Aquinas to Anieze Sanctis' group during the incident with the 'Book of the Law'? Instead of leaving it to others at the church, we jumped in to save her when we didn't have to right?"

"…" Touko wanted to disagree with his reasoning, but for the life of her she can't think of anything that can persuade him. She had already lost count of the times she interfered with things not directly to do with her simply because she can't just do nothing to help.

"You don't have to be alone." Touma said softly. "And you don't have to take everything upon yourself. All that sadness, all the guilt… let me help you shoulder those.

"I won't be able to have peace of mind if I can't help. You have friends; you have family. You have people that you can depend on, as far as you can trust them."

Touma let go of whatever barrier remained in the connection between them on his side, inviting Touko to check for falsity in his words. His action showed that he's willing to accept anything she would allow him to see, and is willing to shoulder any burden, no matter how large or small, for her if necessary.

_Let me help._

That thought... no, a feeling... came across the connection, before being brutally rejected.

_I don't want to see you in pain like this. _

"Then just look the other way, you idiot." Touko spat out, trembling to keep her inner thoughts to herself. "Nobody is asking you to do this."

_I know. But I still want to do this._

"What are you, a masochist? You aren't satisfied with your unfair share of misfortune in life as it is now, and you want even _more_?"

_If being fortunate means being ignorant to people who are suffering out of sight and leave them drenched in blood, then I reject that 'fortune'_. Touma echoed his words he gave to Kamijou Touya during Angel Fall.

"Just leave me be. You have your own duties to seal away _that_ horror in this world. You don't have the luxury to care for a fool that was broken by her own actions, a failure defeated by her own idiocy."

"If I do that, I might as well not be Kamijou Touma." Touko felt a hand placed onto her shoulder. "With or without my memory, I don't think I'd be able to just abandon someone that needs help in front of me. You probably would understand why I feel that better than I do."

"You have your own life, your own problems." Touko wanted to break free from his hand, but can't quite bring herself to do so. She's sure her trembling can be felt by Touma's hand placed on her. "I can tell you now if you continue to try and help me whatever chance you had for a 'normal' life left in you will be gone, a illusion that can't be retrieved. Your love life might as well be non-existent after this, as nobody would associate with an apparent sis-con worse than Tsuchimikado Motoharu. Everything you have right now, everything you know and love… are you willing risk them all for a monster than would eventually bring you ruin? The lives of others, not your own, gambled upon a selfish desire to do what you think is right?"

"Better a ending that everyone can smile happily and live on peacefully, than something ridiculous like circumstances forcing someone to sacrifice themselves to minimise damage." Touma said with conviction. "Even if the good ending turns out to be nothing more than a mere possibility, an ever illusive utopia… I refuse to accept anything else."

Anyone else might take Touma's decision as reckless, and maybe even decry him as taking a path that will harm more people than it might save. '_You're supposed to be a Hero, one of the good guys_' they might say, '_how could you do something like this, risking everything for one person?_'

However, all Touma have done was do what he felt was right, the label of a Hero and his action being the righteous ones seen by the many was not sought for or even felt to be necessary by him. Good or evil, Science Side or Magic Side, none of that mattered.

Right now, here is a person that needed his help, and he wants to help; that is all there is to it.

"So don't try and do everything by yourself anymore. Let those burdens go. No matter what you have done, not even you deserve the condemnation you're putting yourself through.

"I should know – I felt what you're going through first hand, just like you."

Touma would have continued to talk, but he was stopped by Touko whirling around and dived into him, tears momentarily visible before she placed her head into his shoulder and held onto him roughly like he's the only safe spot in an ocean of despair.

"_Uwaaaaaah!_"

Touko cried.

All the sadness, all the pain she felt when losing everything she had, she let it flow out of her. Pain, from losing to Fiamma. Agony, from never able to see her loved ones again. Regret, of the world she grew up in being erased completely. Even the most stoic of people can't be blamed for feeling sad in these circumstances.

Her show of willpower back at the hospital was still there, but warring with her own emotions and trying to cope with her loss would have grinded it down to the point _It_ can escape. Thus, better to deal with possible complications by nipping the trouble in the bud first. Touko needed this catharsis.

Even as the sound of her crying rang out into the surroundings, her emotions poured through the connection. What was a mild empathy link was taxed to the limit, passing on the various thoughts to Touma like he's the one feeling it himself.

She haven't forgiven herself for unable to protect a world from being reformed into something only the insane can make sense of, far from it. The guilt that was strong enough to make her hesitant to use her right hand will not be dispelled any time soon. However, she had found someone that is willing to let her vent everything that she had felt, to give her one moment of vulnerability without having to worry about anything.

As if in response to that thought, Touma returned the embrace, albeit hesitatingly (he hasn't come across a girl crying in his arms before), and placed his arms around Touko. Both of their bags lay on the ground, forgotten by their owners. The hand with Imagine Breaker was gently patting the back of her head, while his other arm is around her waist. Let_ It_ come if it wishes to try breaking free, for Imagine Breaker is on hand to protect Touko when right now she could not protect herself.

There was nothing sexual in how the two is in close contact with one another. Even with Touko's chest pressed onto Touma's, and her arms tightly clamping around his torso, the two of them was too deep into the emotions they shared to give any further thought to such relatively frivolous matters.

It could have been minutes, or even hours that the two was locked in each other's hold and they would not have noticed the time passing. Touko sobbed into Touma's shoulders (though if she could have reached it she'd have cried into his chest instead – being tall has disadvantages too) for a indeterminate amount of time, before finally quietening down.

"Are you alright…?" Touma asked quietly, seeing as Touko is now settling into small hiccups rather than having tears flow like a fountain.

"… Yeah." Touko said in a equally quiet voice, her face still buried in his shoulder. "I feel better now, thanks."

"You still haven't forgiven yourself, though." Touma noted through their connection; Touko haven't bothered to close it back up after she's done. A sign of trust she had in Touma, or just so tired she no longer has the strength to do so.

"And I don't plan to." Touko said, her voice soft but determined. "Don't try to convince me otherwise; not now, anyway. I don't want to fight right now."

"Hmm." Touma murmured in agreement. There's more time to do that later.

A while later, Touko finally looked up and surveyed their surroundings. It's a small miracle nobody had bothered them during their fight and making up – which knowing her (_well, more like __Touma's__ now_; she remembered she no longer had Imagine Breaker) luck should have been next to impossible.

So she was forewarned when something sounded like a bag dropped to the ground, which lead to both Touma and herself turning to look at the source of the noise.

Standing there, jaws dropped down the farthest it is possible for a human girl in her second year at Middle School, was Misaka Mikoto. She stared wide-eyed at the two of them, _still embracing one another_, trying to make words come out of her mouth but failing miserably. Her hands must have lost control of moving her fingers, since her bag that had a Gekota charm on it is the one lying on the ground.

Next to the 3rd ranked Level 5, Shirai Kuroko is also staring wide-eyed at the scene. Whatever comment she could make was postponed by how intense their physical relationship seems to be in, with both of their body language obvious that they accept one another fully. Very close with one another, lack of nervousness in each other's presence, face flushed and almost touching…

It was a degree of trust and bonding she wished with all her might she had with her beloved Onee-sama; even if it's the ape that continues to harass the person she adores, that level of intimacy needs to be given the respect it deserves.

Touko felt her jaw is also trying to fall down, but suppressed the urge. Even if this wasn't _her_ Mikoto, she doesn't want to put up a bad image in front of her.

_Things can't possibly get any worse…_ Touko despaired.

"This…" Touma gulped. "This isn't what it looks like."

… _Damn it, Murphy!_

Touko felt like crying into Touma's shoulder again.

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*End Chapter 3*

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><p><strong>Author's Notes<strong>: So, how believable is the interaction between the characters? Anything you felt off? Does the bit between Touko and Touma need more work? Leave a review please.

Oh, and sorry for the shout outs. I couldn't resist. *grimaces*

I've mentioned I've been playing hard and fast with canon events because it'll make a better story. Accept NOTHING here as LN canon: when in doubt, go read the novels. Or go visit AnimeSuki forum's Toaru Light Novel (or fanfiction) threads - you'll probably get a answer faster asking over there, than trawling through more than 20 volumes worth of reading material.

Updates will be in irregular intervals. Even if I now have 70%-ish of the plot for this fic planned out, I make no guarantees that my muse won't just suddenly adopt a new plot bunny and leave this one. There's also my other story to consider, I haven't gave up on it despite that putting that on hiatus.

Check my profile page here on FF net for update status of my stories. It should give you a rough idea on when the next chapter will be coming.


	4. Chapter 4

**Author****'****s ****Notes:** As requested, I'm making clear what time in the ToAru plot this is at. Right now it's about just prior to Vol14's events (ie, Avignon). I was going to reveal this next chapter (it was going to be this chapter, but this got kind of long so I split it in two), but I might as well make it clear here.

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><p><em>Chapter 4 - Power<em>

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"You, you two…!" Misaka Mikoto's breathing became more rushed, her face getting steadily redder.

"W-wait, don't jump to conclusions here Misaka-!" Touma hastily tried to explain, knowing the signs of imminent electrocution from the Railgun by now.

"At least do something like that at a place where nobody else can see the two of you, damn it!" Mikoto yelled, before a bolt of lightning shot towards him.

Touko calmly pushed Touma away from her and stepped back, leaving him to act as the lightning rod and negate the attack.

"… I should have known you were a womaniser of unimaginable prowess." Touko commented, shifting her gaze from a flustered Mikoto who's still blushing from embarrassment at seeing such an intimate scene, to Shirai Kuroko who couldn't quite erase the gloating from her face at seeing Kamijou Touma being in trouble with her Onee-sama, and finally to the unfortunate boy himself.

"You said all that to me when you already have her as your girlfriend? Well, this isn't really my business, but I feel obliged to warn you that saying things like that to multiple women will one day get you stabbed, if not worse-"

"She/He's not my girlfriend/boyfriend!" Touma and Mikoto both yelled back at Touko, though Touma's response was more exasperated than angry.

"I'm not angry because this guy is my boyfriend!" Mikoto said hotly. "I'm just angry that how can you two have no shame, doing _that_ in broad daylight and in the open-"

"By 'that', do you mean him trying to consoling someone who had recently suffered a traumatic experience and tried to comfort her?" Touko asked placidly.

"… What?" Mikoto gave Touko a confused look.

"Look at the area around his shoulder." Touko advised. "See the wet patch around the shirt there? As embarrassing as it is, I cried into his shoulders as I was reminded of… the recent death of someone I cared about."

Touko's face was forced into a slight grimace, even as she pushed down a sharp stab of pain in her heart as she chose those words that described what she went through. That brief flicker of emotion didn't go unnoticed by the two girls from Tokiwadai here.

"Then there's also how I look right now. I'd say after crying that long my face is probably a mess." Touko remarked. Now that she mentioned it, Mikoto saw how Touko's eyes were red and Mikoto can't quite call Touko's current look right now 'presentable'. How this had escaped her notice earlier Mikoto can't really say, but it was probably because she had focused more on the spiky-haired teen and not the girl next to him.

"Even so…" Mikoto was not entirely convinced by Touko's words. "But the two of you were…"

Mikoto tried to go into the details, but the words just won't come as embarrassment got the better of her. Touko suppressed her smile at Mikoto's response; she really was an innocent, if something only at this level managed to faze her. Her Mikoto was like this too, before Touko slowly brought her step by step further along the path of what it meant being lovers…

_No, __now __is __not __the __time __to __remember __that __kind __of __things __right __now._ Touko reprimanded herself, banishing the thought before it led to other, sadder memories.

From the corner of her eye, Touko saw Touma almost choked at the implications of what Touko had done together with the Misaka Mikoto of another world. Without a word Touko closed the connection between them, saving his male mind from trying to comprehend the nuances of the relationship between two girls.

"Forgive me for interrupting," Kuroko's voice cut through the awkwardness between Mikoto and Touko. "But I believe Onee-sama have a point here: the body language between the two of you suggests you two are quite close, even if the scene just then wasn't that of a intimate nature. Do you have an explanation for that?"

With the teleporter having one eyebrow raised, it left no question that Kuroko is trying to turn the situation to her favour. Despite claims by her Onee-sama suggesting otherwise, it was clear as day that there's _something_ between Mikoto and Touma. It was not a surprise that Kuroko is trying to discredit the competition, really.

"Is it really that surprising that a brother is willing to comfort his sister when she's distressed?" Touko asked blandly and ignored the subtle hint Kuroko gave, that Touma was not available to Mikoto as a lover. Her manipulations toward Mikoto do not concern her right now. "It's only natural that siblings have a close relationship compared to that between friends, isn't it? Doubly so when they are twins."

"… Wait, '_brother_'?" Mikoto stared wide-eyed at Touko as she shifted her gaze back and forth between Touko and Touma, trying to pick out the resemblance.

"You haven't figured it out by now?" Touko asked innocently. "I would have thought it was obvious, what with our eyes and hair being similar."

Before Mikoto can reply however, she was interrupted by Kuroko's groan.

"Damn it! And here I thought Onee-sama can now finally give up on that barbarian now that he has a girlfriend!" Kuroko lamented and fell to her knees in despair. "_Why_ does this happen to me? Do I have to hope for the chance of forbidden love between siblings in order to make sure pure love blossom between Onee-sama and I? This is just- Urk!"

As Mikoto gathered up the lightning around her and intended to shock her kouhai into submission to stop her spouting more of the craziness, Touko had beaten her to silencing the twin-tailed teleporter.

With one hand out in front her, she clenched her hand into a fist. Kuroko had trouble breathing as Touko did so, her airway being constricted by an unseen force.

"Would you mind your language around others, please? Some of us can be offended by the things you're suggesting." Touko said, emphasizing her point by clenching her fist tighter, leading to Kuroko giving a grunt of pain.

Why was it so many people she meets tend to have minds that end up thinking _that_ way when they hear how she and Touma are close? (Yes, she knew she's unfairly generalising people into categories; not that it stopped her from being annoyed.)

"That's enough." Mikoto warned, her electricity started to dance around her before being focused into a sphere in her hands. "Let Kuroko go."

"As you wish." Touko released her hold, and Kuroko took a deep breath trying to get oxygen back into her lungs.

"Attacking other people just because they said something you didn't like? That's not very nice." Mikoto narrowed her eyes at Touko. She doesn't think highly about people that try to hurt her friends.

"You were about to send a bolt of electricity into your friend there for talking like that. I fail to see how you have the right to complain to what I just did." Touko shrugged. "Or is it that you're saying you two are in a relationship where only you are allowed to hurt your friend there? I apologise then, I didn't mean to interrupt something that's a demonstration of love between two people connected in such a way normal methods of expressing their bond is just not enough…"

"Is that true, Onee-sama?" Kuroko shot back up like being choked did absolutely nothing, the idea that Misaka Mikoto having special feelings for her had overwritten anything else in her mind. Though, when one thinks about it, Shirai Kuroko lived through her Dorm-Manager's neck-breaking technique on a regular basis (mostly for her antics in trying to seduce her roommate, but also at times for not filing the forms when she's absent due to Judgment duty early enough) so something as comparatively minor as choking is hardly enough to keep her down. "Oh, Kuroko is so ashamed to have never noticed! Please, Onee-sama, shower me with more affection-"

The bolt of lightning struck Kuroko, leaving her keeled over and with a smile on her face. Mikoto's face is flushed, and then glared at Touko who watched in amusement at how things have turned out.

Having been around Kuroko and Mikoto long enough, Touko already knew what to say – and more importantly, what _not_ to say – to keep the situation under control when dealing with them.

"It's not like that." Mikoto said defensively. "Kuroko's a friend and a roommate, but we don't have that kind of relationship!"

"And yet you trust her enough to shoot a bolt of lightning at your friend, knowing she can handle it." Touko remarked. "Most people would say that's quite a amount of trust... and not the kind most people who are just friends and roommates have."

"Well, what about you! You tried to strangle her!" Mikoto switched to a different point, knowing she can't win in the verbal fight if they kept going on the same topic. "It's different in how you just attacked without knowing if she can be alright after that!"

"I'm just a Level 2 in Telekinesis. I seriously doubt I can do something like strangling people at that range." Touko said dryly. To emphasize her point, Touko pointed at the unopened can of drink that was left on the ground, dropped and forgotten when she hugged Touma.

The can wobbly levitated up, and shakily moved towards Touko's hand; the closer it approached Touko the more stable the can looked, like it wasn't going to just suddenly fall to the ground.

_I__'__ll __explain __later_. Touko told Touma via their connection, and he masked his look of surprise (after all, how does losing Imagine Breaker lead to telekinesis?) before Mikoto noticed it. Out loud, Touko said as she caught her drink: "Now, as a student of Tokiwadai you're at least Level 3, right? Surely anything you throw at her is potentially more dangerous than what I can do."

Mikoto grumbled unhappily. She really can't argue against that, not when in events like Daihaseisai she was forbidden to use any electricity based moves because that was potentially too powerful for the human body to handle.

"… You never told me you had siblings." Mikoto accused Touma, ignoring Touko's earlier question on seeing family resemblances. "Or that she has a different ability to what you have."

The 'Experiment' suggested those with similar DNA have a high chance of having the same ability; hence Mikoto's conclusion of Touko also having a negation ability, and surprise that Touko didn't.

Knowing Mikoto, showing she does not have a power like Imagine Breaker is a smart move for Touko; Touko was spared of potentially being hunted down to be a sparring partner against a Level 5, like what Touma went through in his earlier days with Mikoto. Saying she's 'only' Level 2 also removed the possibility of treated like Touma when he said he was just a Level 0 – avoiding Mikoto following up from a precedent that 'powerless' people actually do have a ability worth investigating.

"You never asked?" Touma replied weakly, hoping she never actually did ask as he couldn't be sure due to his memory loss. He almost sighed in relief seeing Mikoto clamp shut after thinking about it, finally conceding that yes, she never did ask about his family.

That still doesn't make her feel any better, though.

"I believe an introduction is in order." Touko suggested, giving a half-formal bow to Mikoto. "I'm Kamijou Touko, twin sister to the idiot here that you've been taking care of. Pleased to meet you."

"I'm Misaka Mikoto." The Railgun gave a bow back. Never let it be said the young ladies of Tokiwadai are not well versed in proper etiquette, as they're still ojous despite being middle school students. Knowing these things off by heart is something that was expected of them (even if some of them choose not to act like a well-mannered lady all the time). Next to her, Kuroko gave a similar introduction, after she recovered from what she saw as a over-the-top reaction from both of the other girls present at her comments.

"Was the 'idiot' comment necessary?" Touma winced at the label given to him.

"Probably." Touko said back to him, though while Touma was thinking his 'twin sister' is making fun of his supposedly low intellect, she was actually pointing out how dense he can be when it comes to romance.

Really, this Mikoto has practically fallen head over heels for him and is held back by nothing more than her embarrassment and inexperience in love – probably better known as her 'tsun' side. If Touko was the one in Touma's position right now she'd be able to make Mikoto her official girlfriend in a week's time; with the experience she had dealing with Mikoto in her world, probably even less if she really tried.

_Then __again, __Touma__'__s __love __life __isn__'__t __really __my __business__…_ Touko sighed inwardly. If Touma's not interested in love, then so be it. Having said that, she's not crazy enough to try and make this Mikoto a replacement for the one she lost. She already knew being involved romantically, at least for her, didn't help the situation.

That became painfully obvious after what Acqua of the Back did to them back in her world.

"Do you still want to head off to the supermarket?" Touko asked Touma. "If you have something to do with Misaka-san here I could go by myself…"

"We'll still go together. I haven't got anything else planned, and I promised to go with you first." Touma stated without hesitation. "We might not be able to make the sale, but at least I can still tell you where the bargains usually are. Just let me go back and grab some cash, leave my bag back at the dorm, that kind of things."

"Alright." Touko nodded. She then turned to the two middle school students here:

"Pardon us, but we need to be going now. It was a pleasure meeting the two of you."

"Ah, um, yes." For some reason, Mikoto looked flustered at Touko's response. "See you later, then."

The two sides separated, with Touma giving Touko a brief rundown on where they're going and what to look for at the supermarket as they walked away. Even without turning back, Touko can feel the gaze from Mikoto falling onto their back that's walking away together, and Kuroko probably having a unhappy look that her Onee-sama is paying more attention to Touma rather than herself.

This time, she allowed her sigh to be verbalised. More love troubles, even if she somehow managed to escape having made a bad impression on Mikoto. With Touko appearing out of nowhere and appears to be associated closely with Touma would mark her as a potential rival to keep a eye on, even if Mikoto might not consciously think that way. This had the potential to be very bad, depending on how this plays out.

Touko just hoped Mikoto won't do anything rash. She seemed like an emotionally stable girl…

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"I'm back, Index." Touma called out as he entered into his living room.

"Welcome back, Touma." The silver-haired sister tore her attention from the television (well, what else can a girl well versed in magic do in a city of Science?) and focused onto Touma. Index's eyes widened as she saw Touko (who cleaned herself up before coming here) entering, and tried to move away timidly.

Touko didn't fault Index for acting that way. Normal magicians, who produce mana themselves as they refined their own life energy into magical power, tend to miss tiny signs of energy movement. Index, who doesn't have mana (at least when she's not in John's Pen Mode) don't have that drawback which she had compared to 'people who is used to eating strong-tasting food cannot distinguish slight changes in the flavour'.

Thus, she can perfectly feel there's just something _wrong_ with Touko. It was not mana, not telesma… but there was just a sense of wrongness coming from Touko. Touko's right hand gave off small waves that put her on edge, producing minute amounts of energy unidentifiable to anything within the 103,000 grimoires Index possessed.

If Touma's right hand was 'destruction that's a part of nature', reducing magical energy to nothing similar to how plants decayed back into the earth… then Touko's hand felt almost the opposite. She held the possibilities of 'Life', but warped in such a way it was straddling the line between what was natural and unnatural. That effect is lessened (though not completely erased) when Touma was around, but to Index it is still noticeable. Hence the reaction from Index that Touma had put down to 'dislike', and he had no idea why Index would act this way.

Touko, on the other hand, wasn't helping the situation. When Index, the one from her world, has been freed from the 'Collar', its weapons like Dragon's Breath unable to defeat the Imagine Breaker, Touko told Index to go with Stiyl Magnus and Kanzaki Kaori. The one that spent days with her, being the anchor of safety Index had not came across for a entire year as she ran from pursuers, had abandoned her to the ones who until days ago are seen by Index as the face of evil-doers that tried to capture her for their own gains.

Mistakenly, Touko had thought no matter how bad the two magicians are they can't possibly be more of a danger compared to being around the vessel of _It_, Imagine Breaker being present or not. It was the lesser of two evils to send her away than to expose her to horrors beyond that of mortal understanding. Later events showed maybe that was a bad idea, to say the least.

To put it in a way Aogami would understand, Touko missed the crucial flag right at the very start that determined if she'll get a Bad End, and after the wrong choice is made you don't realise the mistake you're almost at the final scene.

Sure, Touko met Index at later incidents like the Book of the Law, but they never got beyond just being acquaintances. Touko don't really know how to interact with Index like she did with other people she met once more coming into this world, and it showed. When Touma brought Index to the hospital to visit Touko, the girl who had once possessed Imagine Breaker were at a loss trying to think of something that would make Index be more at ease around her.

Then again, Index was not entirely wrong to think of Touko as something like an Eldritch Abomination in human form. With that in mind, Touko decided it does not matter if Index doesn't like her, if it means someone will be careful and keep watch.

In addition, this way it will be less of a hassle when the situation demand Touko is to be put down like a rabid dog. There will be fewer people to be afflicted by unnecessary grief in that case.

"I'm going out to buy the ingredients we need for dinner." Touma said to Index, blissfully unaware of the edginess between Touko and Index. "I might take a while since I'll also be showing Touko around. Do you want to come along?"

"… No, thanks. I'll just wait here for you, Touma." Index said, reaching for Sphinx. The kitten nimbly avoided the hand, and walked over to Touko and started begging to be petted.

Whatever power Touko is leaking out, it appears it doesn't make animals think she's threatening (A danger, maybe… but not something that would harm you unless you provoked it). Touko crouched down and scratched Sphinx's ear, a small smile on her face. Yet another difference between the two worlds, as Touko never had a pet; but considering how close she was with Mikoto, any pet she had probably would have been placed through the torture of being around strong electromagnetic fields more often then they liked.

Good thing Misaka #10032's AIM field isn't as strong as her Onee-sama's, then; otherwise the black kitten she picked up would have been much more uneasy around the clones, and probably have never gotten used to their AIM fields.

"Alright, if you say so." Touma said, pocketing his wallet and began to walk out. He wondered what had gotten into Index recently, since if he invited her to go shopping most of the time Index agreed to come – out of boredom if nothing else. It doesn't seem like other people coming along is a factor, as Index didn't change her behaviour when Himegami was living with them or when Kazakiri is around. "Well, Touko-san?"

Touko stood back up, and deposited Sphinx back into the hands of Index as the white-clad nun came to see them off. In response to the wariness Index directed towards Touko, the taller girl merely turned away and followed Touma out of the room after she politely said her farewells.

She tried not to let Index's actions towards her right now act as a reminder of what happened to the Index of her world. If painful reminders happened every time she met someone familiar, she'd never be able to get anything done. For everyone's sake, she can't afford to get sentimental right now.

-][-

"So, about that explanation…" Touma started to say, as he leaned forward to pick out the meat they're buying tonight.

_Remember __what __I __said __before, __how __our __resonance __is __a__ '__natural__' __power __as __opposed __to__ '__supernatural__'__?_ Touko sent through their connection. _The__ '__telekinesis__' __I __used __earlier __follows __the __same __principles; __I __don__'__t __overwrite __reality __with __something __like __Personal __Reality, __I__ '__bend__' __the __rules __of __reality __into __achieving similar __effects._

… _How __is __that __even __possible?_ Touma thought back to her.

_You t__ell __me. __I __don__'__t __get __how __formatting __our __brains __a __certain __way __allow __humans __to __overwrite __reality __either __despite __the __Science __behind __it. __But __if __reality __can __be __overwritten __is __it __that __much __of __a __surprise __it __can __be __directly __manipulated?_ Touko responded voicelessly, reaching out to one of the packs. _All __I __know __is WHY__this __works. __Not __the HOW__of __it._

_And __I __suppose __this __is __something __I __should __already __know._ Touma sighed inwardly. It wasn't even a question, just a statement of fact. _I__'__d __be __interested __in __using __some __powers __like __that__…_

_I__'__d __advise __you __against __it_. Touko 'said' sharply back to Touma, as she walked to the next section of the supermarket. _I__'__m __only __using __this __because __I __don__'__t __have __Imagine __Breaker __anymore. __Your __right __hand __acts __as __a __lock, __sealing __away __something __inside __you. __Using __another __power __puts __a __strain __on __the __lock, __like __a __computer __trying __to __run __too __many __programs __and __the __CPU __can__'__t __handle __it. __Frankly, __this __ability __is __the __last __line __of __defence __I __have __keeping__ '__It__' __sealed __away __inside __me, __and __every __time __I __use __this__ '__It__' __is __more __likely __to __break __free __- __that THING __have __a __back door __into __the __ability __through __me._

Touko's words were filled with venom as she thought about the one partially responsible for the end of her world. Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, she continued:

_Right now, you're pretty much in an ideal state: you're not using an ability that has a loophole for another being to exploit through you, and the lock is still strong. You might not be able to throw lightning and flames around like a god of war, but at least this way you don't have an entity trying to devour you from the inside out._

Touma mulled the information over. _Power __has __a __price, __huh?_

_Don__'__t __it __always?_ Touko's reply had a bitter tone to it.

The two of them got everything they're after by this point, and headed towards the checkout.

_If __it __ever __turns __out __you __need __power, __strength __more __than __what __you __have __right __now__…_ Touko told him as they placed the groceries in front of the cashier. _Use __the __Imagine __Breaker__'__s __full __strength __instead __of __relying __on __the __other __ability. __It will__also __put __strain __on __the __lock, __but __not __as __much __as __the __alternative. __And __considering __our__… __no, __your __opponents __will __be __mostly __magicians __and __espers, __I__'__d __say __that __would __be __enough._

'_My__' __opponents?_ Touma frowned slightly, taking half of the bags the cashier handed to them. _Aren__'__t __you __going __to __help __me?_

_If __you __need __my __help, __by __that __point __we__'__d __already __be __in __trouble __so __deep __it __won__'__t __matter __either __way __how __much __more __help __you __have._ Touko told him, both of them walking out the supermarket. Left unsaid was her opinion on how if she helps she might just make things worse.

Not that Touma would believe it anyway; but the two of them going in circles repeating the same arguments again and again won't help the conversation.

As they began to go their separate ways back to their current residence, Touma called back to Touko:

_One final thing – is there a name for this ability? I don't want to just refer to it as 'that ability' whenever we talk about it, it's too much of a mouthful._

_I__'__d __think __you__'__d __probably __keep __calling __it__ '__that __ability__' __even __after __I __tell __you __its __name_. Touko's amusement drifted across the connection.

_Oh?_ Touma asked, not quite believing Touko's claim.

'_**Kamijou**__**'**__. __The __Power __Above __That __of __God__'__s.__ '__La __Persona __Superiore __a __Dio__'__.__ These __are __just __some __of __the __names __that __have __been __used __to __refer __to __this __ability, __or __a __person __with __this __ability_. Touko's chuckling voice was mentally heard by Touma. In spite of the amusement however, there was also a sense of mocking directed towards herself. Laughing at the irony of how someone with power arguably the strongest on her planet had ultimately failed to protect what she wanted to. _Really, __you __probably __won__'__t __be __using __names __as __ostentatious __as __these __if __you __can __help __it, __right?_

Without waiting for an answer, Touko left. Touma turned just in time to see her vanish around a corner, her voice in his mind fading away that same instant with the connection being closed off.

Despite her answers, Touma now have even more questions than before.

-][-

-][-

*End Chapter 4*

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><p><strong>Author<strong>**'****s ****Notes**: I know the first part of this chapter, where Touko met Mikoto is weak writing; I was stuck on that for a while. In the end I decided to just put something there and move on to more important/interesting things. I don't want to be stuck there when I have more to write.

I've been hinting at Touko's past, and how she messed up throughout this story. Rest assured I will be putting flashback scenes in once certain events come to pass, eg Acqua's attack on Academy City and the UK Civil War.

As for the explanation/theory of the 'natural vs supernatural power'… I did say I'm going to be playing hard and fast with Index canon. More information will be revealed to help readers make sense of everything – just not soon.

I blame Tvtropes, Doctor Who and Warhammer 40k for giving my muse the premise to the theory I'm going to be going with in later chapters.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Toaru Majutsu no Index or any of its related franchises, characters and such. This fic contains spoilers from the Light Novels, I advise all readers to finish reading those over at BakaTsuki before reading this fic to maximise your reading experience.

* * *

><p><em>Chapter 5<em> - _Hidden Truths_

-][-

A few days later…

"I'm telling you, black bunny girls are the way to go!"

"Are you blind? Anyone can tell red bunny girls are the best!"

"Oh, come on: it's unquestionable that white bunny girls are better than _both_ of your options combined nyaa!"

Lunch break on a certain day, the usual things were happening at a certain class in a certain high school.

The idiot trio of the class was discussing, with unnatural fervour, about things most people couldn't possibly hope to understand. Aogami Pierce and Kamijou Touma were the ones this time to start the argument, while Tsuchimikado Motoharu had jumped in half way and poured oil onto the flames.

All in all, nothing out of the ordinary for this class.

"Again with those idiots…" Fukiyose Seiri fumed. The well-endowed girl was eating her lunch with Himegami Aisa, and also with Kamijou Touko sat close by. Himegami stayed silent and observed, while Touko chuckled as the boys' argument descended into a (somewhat serious) fistfight.

"It never ceases to amaze me how ridiculous boys can be," Touko commented, digging into her own bento. Like Himegami, she took the time to make her own lunch – even if half of it is leftovers from last night. Both of the girls with Touko by this point had noticed Touma's twin sister never really did something with 100% dedication - outside of schoolwork, anyway. Her mind might not be much better than Touma's at processing the work given to them, but at least she was willing to put the effort in. Touko had even asked Fukiyose to tutor her in some of the things she doesn't quite understand; and Fukiyose couldn't really deny Touko's request when she had shown she's not the same lazy, unmotivated person as her brother.

Fukiyose's mind wandered to the possibility Touko's somehow manipulating the situation, eventually cornering her into becoming Touko's lover like a lioness stalks her prey. She quickly banished the thought, as such suspicions are unseemly when the other party haven't really done anything.

_Yet_.

"Boys will be boys, I guess," Fukiyose grumbled. "I just wish they don't disturb others in whatever depravity they are talking about."

"Well, I can't do anything about that even if I'm Touma's sister. Influence from family ties can only go so far," Touko shrugged, and swallowed a mouthful of her food. "Although…"

"Yes?" Both Himegami and Fukiyose looked at Touko expectantly.

"I think there's a way to rein Touma in, at least. I doubt this will work on the other two though," Touko admitted. In the background of their conversation, the other three's fighting continued.

"Really? It's better than having none of them stopped at all at least," Fukiyose said with interest. "So what's the plan you've come up with?"

"I'll say in advance you definitely won't like what I'm proposing," Touko warned.

"… How bad is it?" Fukiyose's thoughts flashed momentarily back to her suspicions.

"Very bad."

"… Fine, I'll bite. What do you have in mind?" Fukiyose asked, with curiosity got the better of her.

"Oh, it's nothing much…" Touko allowed a wide smirk to show on her face. "It's just that we make you Kamijou Touma's girlfriend."

"…"

"…"

Both of the girls with her, and some of the other students who overheard their conversation, gaped at Touko like the proverbial fish.

"**WHAAAAAAT!**" Fukiyose finally screeched out, pounding her fists down onto the desk in front of her in a loud '_thwack_' as she stood up. All eyes were directed at the trio of girls that was the source of the commotion that surpassed even that of the three boys fighting; the three boys themselves froze in their conflict like a 'Stop' button was pushed at a video, and stared towards Fukiyose and Touko.

"Why do I have to be the one that has to deal with him?" Fukiyose said hotly, giving Touko a look with the same kind of intensity that she normally reserved for chewing out Touma and company.

"Think about it: Kamijou Touma gets into trouble because he's interested in _that_ kind of things," Touko explained patiently, unfazed by Fukiyose's outburst. "So the best way to stop him is to have someone that can keep a eye on him, and make sure he doesn't stray from the right path. And since you are probably the only girl in the entire city immune to his charms, we can't in good conscience make anyone else take up this role. They'd just fall within days and end up as an addition to the many girls that follow him around."

"That's no reason for me to become his _girlfriend_, of all things," Fukiyose said the word 'girlfriend' in a tone of disgust. "Not to mention being in a relationship where none of the two even like each other is a terrible idea."

"Hmm." Touko hummed in agreement. "That's true. Besides, Touma doesn't deserve someone like a girlfriend and the perks that come along in such a relationship."

"I'm glad to see you haven't _completely_ lost your senses there, Touko-san," Fukiyose harrumphed, thinking the only reason Touko would even suggest such a thing would be because of external factors. Probably the tablets as part of the esper development program messing with her head, it was not unheard of for them to have side effects now and then.

"The best option, then, is to set you up as his jailor instead," Touko continued, ignoring Fukiyose's jibe at her sanity.

"… _What_." Fukiyose said flatly as her eyes narrowed. Whatever doubts she had towards Touko's state of mind is nonexistent by this point.

"I'm pretty sure you're not suffering from anything that can make you have a sudden loss of hearing, Fukiyose-san," Touko said with a smile. "But I'll explain anyway: it's too cruel to just inflict the horror that is my brother on you as a romantic partner… actually, I wouldn't wish that fate onto _any_ girl-"

Touma tried protest at the unfair opinion the two girls have of him, but failed due to Tsuchimikado putting him in a headlock and his objections came out as a choked cough.

"-yet we need someone that keep him in check. Hence the idea of have him being shackled to you – metaphorically speaking, of course – so someone can make sure he turns out alright. Or just making sure he's kept well away from other girls, if nothing else."

"Well then, why can't it be you, for example?" Fukiyose's hands twitched like she wants to tear her hair out in the stress. Or to strangle the source of her current problems.

"You already have an example of a boy in this class that is obsessed with his sister. Surely it is obvious by now family ties does nothing in these situations," Touko said dryly, pointing out Tsuchimikado's situation. "Better to have a tried and true method deal with him than something that's just theoretically possible. The last thing we need is for Touma's circumstances worsen and goes down the paths the other two did."

Fukiyose opened her mouth as she tried to say something – anything – that can describe what she is thinking right now.

No words came out.

"Oi Touko, I think you can stop messing with Fukiyose," Touma broke free of Tsuchimikado's headlock – throwing the blonde spy over his shoulder in the process – and tried to defuse the situation. "At this rate she's going to explode from your teasing, and I'm sure none of us here will like the result…"

"I don't know, this could all just be a extreme case of tsundere on Fukiyose's part, and this entire thing is an well-played act to secure the target of her affection with Touko's help," Aogami pointed out, his vast experience in this area (admittedly, all of which is completely derived from the 2D world) providing an alternative explanation. "This probably isn't what it appears to be."

"Wait, what?" Touma stared at his blue-haired friend. "Fukiyose? A tsundere? You have got to be kidding me."

"No, really, if you think of it this way it all makes sense!" Aogami went on like someone who has finally seen the light. "Her actions towards you can be explained by a combination of 'playing hard-to-get' and the 'tsun' side of her character! All her hostile actions that you had suffered before is just her own way of saying 'take the hint already… baka' and wanting your attention. It's not like she does that for anyone else, right?"

Only Aogami Pierce can comprehend what would be a clear-cut case of 'I don't like him and his way of life' as a sign that stated 'I love you and no way in hell I'm ever going to say this up front'. But unfortunately, idiocy seems to be contagious around here: whispers began to spread between students, confirming how Fukiyose seem to be exceptionally hard on Touma compared to others even as she held him at arm's length. Slowly, bit by bit they've all but convinced themselves Fukiyose has fallen long ago and is only now fighting a rearguard action.

Several of them would later swear they most certainly did _not_ weep at the prospect that Kamijou (male) had all but won and humanity's doomed. If Fukiyose had been conquered there was really nobody else left as defence.

Touko hid her smirk behind one hand as she saw the various reactions, and she took a particular pleasure at watching Fukiyose fume. 'Incoherent rage' doesn't even begin to describe what Fukiyose is feeling now.

"Aaaaaargh!" Fukiyose shouted in fury, rushing towards the idiot trio who, sadly, didn't know when to shut their mouths when it comes to a volatile topic.

Thus, Oyafune Suama, the maths teacher for this class, stumbled across the scene where Fukiyose had kicked Aogami into the ground, Tsuchimikado is in a headlock, and Touma being headbutted. Other students were in various states of incapacity, having already been knocked down by an enraged berserker in an attempt to calm her down. The idiot trio (plus one severely annoyed girl) was taken away to the staff room on the grounds of 'violent behaviour'.

This incident was branded into the collective heads of a certain class at a certain high school, and the important lesson was learnt:

Do NOT call Fukiyose Seiri a tsundere.

_Ever_.

-][-

-][-

"Oh?" Touko paused in her steps as she saw a familiar person walking towards her. "Hey there, Tsuchimikado. You decided to skip detention then?"

After school, and on a shopping trip before returning to Komoe-sensei's place she ran into the blonde boy who should have been pulling weeds with the others. At least, that's what she heard they have been sentenced to do as punishment from the other girls anyway.

"Well, I'm certainly not going to be punished for anything I didn't do nyaa," Tsuchimikado said, after gotten over his mild surprise at unexpectedly running into Touko here. "It's mostly your fault for riling up Fukiyose like that."

"Riiight. Like your comment about her being a tsundere didn't influence her decision at all," Touko snorted, remembering Tsuchimikado's feeble attempt to escape was just pouring fuel onto the fire. If she was honest, she might have said she instigated that furore because it would have been fun. Nothing malicious in her intent, but she did enjoy watching Touma's class wreaking havoc like the people she knew once did.

"Sheesh. I pity Kami-yan if he has to deal with you on a regular basis," Tsuchimikado said with a mock sigh as his sunglasses glinted under the afternoon sun. "There's enough girl trouble in his life as it is, without someone who seem to enjoy his suffering involved in it all."

"I thought Fukiyose needed to loosen up. Be less serious," Touko said airily. "And really, she'd be a good match for Touma. None of that Magic or Science side business to taint their relationship, just a regular guy and girl hanging out."

"… What?" Tsuchimikado's smile stiffened as he heard something that didn't seem to belong in a casual conversation between two classmates. _Does __she __mean__…_

"Heading off to Avignon soon?" Touko asked in a offhand manner, confirming Tsuchimikado's suspicions.

"How did you know about that?" Tsuchimikado replied, all traces of casualness gone from his posture and tone of voice as he looked at the girl who claimed to be related to Kamijou Touma in a new light. His sunglasses hid how his eyes narrowed at Touko's insinuation of knowing a bit about the Darkness of Academy City, but the shades could not have hidden how his lips tightened slightly after hearing Touko's comment. To anyone else he would have came off as intimidating, but repeated exposure to this pressure have made Touko somewhat used to this long ago. 'Somewhat' being the key word.

"You wouldn't believe me even if I tell you." Touko said with a shrug, masking her worrying. She hasn't forgotten the last time Tsuchimikado – the one from her world – handed her ass back to her using only hand-to-hand combat during Angel Fall. In a head on fight, Touko knew Tsuchimikado's own experiences as a spy is superior to her own experience fighting against delinquents; the blonde boy in front of her is one of the few people she would not want to fight if possible. "All I have to say is make sure you bring my brother back alive; The Frog-faced Doctor can handle the rest."

"Wait." Tsuchimikado called to Touko as she was about to leave. "Why is a 'Spare Plan' like you concerned about Kami-yan's wellbeing?"

"'Spare Plan'?" Touko stopped moving. "Oh, right, I suppose with the information available this is a logical conclusion to come to. Unless Aleister decided to take advantage of this development and decided to make me the 'Spare Plan' for Touma anyway."

"Cut the crap," Tsuchimikado said bluntly. "I thought the bastard knew better to make a project based on clones and expect it to work. The 'Level 5 Mass Production' project should have made it obvious that cloning someone does not give exactly the same ability, at the same level…

"So why are you created, and why did you approach Kamijou Touma?"

"You really think I'm a clone, don't you?" Touko said ruefully. "I take it you already checked the DNA evidence that you stole from Heaven Canceller?"

"Almost the exact copy to Kami-yan, except the fact you're a girl." Tsuchimikado confirmed Touko's suspicions. He might be the 'Back-stabber', but that doesn't mean Tsuchimikado Motoharu is someone that would leave his friends in trouble – so when something came up it's only to be expected he started investigating. "I don't even want to know what he was thinking when he made that change."

"And you didn't consider that someone else could possibly create a clone of Touma, not ordered to by Aleister?" Touko queried.

"Ha," Tsuchimikado snorted derisively. "In the unlikely case that you don't know this already, nothing about Kamijou Touma is allowed to be meddled with without Aleister's command while they're a part of this city. Any idiot that even tries something like cloning him, assuming they have enough clearance to even know about Kami-yan's importance, would be eliminated before the end product is even half way complete. The only way you're allowed to exist is because Aleister allowed it."

"Judging from your words, it appears you think I'm an agent of Aleister's. And that I'm deep enough in the Darkness to know things beyond what most people can even imagine, even if they're a part of that same Darkness." Touko noted. "Impressive acting, I'll admit."

"Hm?" Tsuchimikado's posture that was like a tightly strung bow ready for action lost its edge for a fraction of a second there, before recovering. "What are you talking about?"

"Even without Imagine Breaker, I've somehow been granted almost the same attention and treatment as Kamijou Touma," Touko replied. That's a logical assumption if she's been labelled as a 'Spare Plan' by Aleister. "Which, if I'm a 'failed product' like you said, is something should not have been granted to me. Someone of your calibre would have looked past the façades put up by Heaven Canceller and myself to know the 'clone' answer is not the right one; I'm a factor that came out of nowhere, no records of any kind within Academy City or even outside it, and Aleister had presumably made me another one of his 'Spare Plans' like Kakine Teitoku, using unforseen changes to speed up his plans."

To be honest, Touko didn't know anything about Kakine, beyond what was briefly written on the page that outlined the abilities of the seven Level 5s in the 'Level 6 Shift' documents she had stolen from Mikoto. All she knew was he's the 2nd ranked Level 5 of Academy City, have the ability of Dark Matter, and was supposedly a replacement for Accelerator for something. What that 'something' was, she never found out – the documents never said anything more than it might be another factor that makes Kakine ill-suited for the Level 6 Shift project.

"The 'unsuccessful clone that lacks Imagine Breaker' answer have too many holes in it, if one has the access to enough information and is willing to dig deeper. Being a member of the Magic Side and the shadowy politics beyond just that of Academy City's, you're someone that won't be satisfied with the obvious answer, and have the resources to dig as deep as you're allowed to without being eliminated by Aleister.

"The goal of what you've said so far is fishing for more information, as you're reached the point records are useless and it's better to get whatever you can from the person in question." Touko concluded.

"…"

Tsuchimikado Motoharu had to conclude the girl named 'Kamijou Touko' was smart - or at least, capable. He's not entirely convinced of everything that she had said so far, and she managed to find out his intentions behind his words.

As expected of her, really. Touko had somehow talked Kumokawa Seria into giving her a hand in transferring into their school, and into Touma's class with some help from Heaven Canceller; which meant by extension, Touko also have the backing of Director Kaizumi Tsugutoshi. Not as fearsome as someone directly connected to General Superintendant Aleister as he had thought she was (Touko didn't give the impression she's working for Aleister in some way, like Musujime Awaki did; but Tsuchimikado is not ruling out falsehoods at this time), but having one of the 12 Directors of Academy City as her ally is certainly nothing to scoff at.

As for her connection to Heaven Canceller, well… as impressive and influential as the doctor is, this is less of a achievement. The good doctor never abandons his patients, or anyone that asks him for help if he thinks they need it. Kiyama Harumi managed to get the Frog-faced Doctor to help her, despite not being a patient herself.

"We still have a bit of time before Touma is done with detention," Tsuchimikado focused back onto the girl in front of him at her words, "So how long do you have left before you have to play the Villain and drag Touma to Avignon? You've prepared everything by this point?"

"That is really none of your business," Tsuchimikado muttered a curse, pondering where she got that knowledge from. He was sure that Touko was talking about the request Director Oyafune had asked of him, pre-emptively being 'punished' by agents working for other Directors as the old lady went against the will of the Board of Directors as a whole. "And a word of advice; knowing too much can get you into trouble if you're not careful."

"That's true." Touko looked to the side as she replied, a wistful tone creeping into her voice. "I've found that out first hand a few times myself."

Tsuchimikado ignored the connotations that the girl in front of him was another innocent victim of the Darkness of the world. In this line of work, it was prudent to not take appearances as reality.

"So, why did you bring up Avignon in front of me?" Tsuchimikado asked, fully in his 'professional mode' like if he's on a job as part of GROUP or working as a agent of Necessarius. "And asking if I have any time available, I take it you need to talk to me about something?"

Touko nodded in agreement.

"When you reach Avignon, watch out for Terra of the Left." Touko warned Tsuchimikado, her stoic face and posture showing how serious she is taking this conversation. "He's a member of the God's Right Seat, and uses the precedence spell 'Execution of Light'. The spell uses a explanation of how the impossible act of the Son of God being impaled by humans came to pass in order to affect the world."

"And who are you to know about the details of the spells the God's Right Seat possess?" Tsuchimikado replied skeptically. "I find it hard to believe one of the most secretive organisation in Christianity can have their trump cards be leaked out like that."

"Believe what you want. I'm certainly not going to tell you what to do with this information, just that it's better for you to know this." Touko shrugged.

"Why not tell Kami-yan about this though?" Tsuchimikado persisted in trying to find inconsistencies. He doesn't trust Touko, not when he doesn't know enough about the situation. "Why are you telling me instead? He didn't act like he knew about any of this yet."

-][-

_The rioters around Touko who were driven berserk and single-mindedly attempting to stop her paused, as the enchantment of the Document of Constantine was dispelled by her Imagine Breaker. Everyone within a twenty metre diameter of Touko regained their senses, but they did not have time to puzzle out the situation with their unsteady minds before the other rioters behind them charged forward in their haste to reach their target._

_Touko shoved herself through the confused crowd around her, and left the unfortunate citizens that became the pawns of a Roman Catholic Church behind to deal with those still under the influence of the C-Document. Not once did she look back at the yelling and infighting, with the residents of Avignon still frenzied by the C-Document falling upon the ones that stopped attacking, their berserk minds coming to the conclusion they're enemy sympathisers._

_Itsuwa followed behind Touko; and despite her earlier words telling Touko their first priority is to stop Terra and not help the bystanders caught up – that they need to deal with the cause of the problem rather than the effect – Itsuwa was chilled at how Touko have seemingly stopped to care about collateral damage._

_Once inside the Papal Palace, Touko's behaviour did not seem to change drastically. Terra of the Left, a member of God's Right Seat, and one of the most powerful magicians on Earth… could do nothing against Kamijou Touko as they fought._

_Not even setting multiple precedences below his chosen attacks managed to save the wizened old man. A magic Terra spent over a decade mastering and perfecting was ultimately useless against the bane of supernatural powers._

_"Precedence: Flour – Higher!" Terra croaked with panic in his eyes._

_Terra's flour blades that would have cut through regardless flesh or stone was dispelled before it even came close to Touko or Itsuwa, and when he tried to bring down the roof upon them using a storm of the white powder the flour was forcibly returned to a formless cloud as Touko gestured at it._

_"Precedence: Human Flesh – Lower."_

_What should happened was the air itself crushing his targets, the world's very existence eliminating something now too weak to hold against the pressure of everything else and leave its remains as a pool of blood…_

_With the sound of cracked glass ringing through the air, Itsuwa closed in with her spear unharmed. Behind her, Touko watched coldly at the magician in green who has the culprit behind the series of riots across the world as she approached._

_"Precedence: Human – Higher."_

_Itsuwa's spear was repelled in the instant Terra uttered his defence spell, forcing the world around him to accept the concept that humans cannot be harmed. However, that defence crumpled with Touko's fist impacted onto Terra's chest, blowing him backwards and coughing wildly._

_The one-sided battle soon ended after that. Then the two of them gave chase to the magicians who still possessed the C-Document, as the wily magician they just defeated wasn't dumb enough to bring a powerful magical artefact to a fight when he's against a known entity who can negate such things easily._

_Nothing is ever as simple as beating a final boss and obtaining a Happy Ending. Not for Kamijou Touko._

-][-

"Touma, with only his right hand, won't be enough to stop Terra and get the job done." Touko said to Tsuchimikado, her flashback telling her with a limited reach Imagine Breaker is not very effective or at all versatile when faced with someone like Terra of the Left. "So he needs help. And help is more useful when they know what they will be facing – knowledge is power, after all."

"That doesn't explain why you didn't tell Kami-yan." Tsuchimikado said. "Especially after how you said 'Knowledge is Power'. He'd be better off knowing what you had just said to me."

"He needs experience. If the difficulty settings lowered, it's easier to progress in the game but you won't level up fast enough… and that will lead to the final boss being practically impossible to defeat due to the difference in both skill and power between the characters." Touko said cryptically. "My reasons coincide with many other factions, despite originating from different motives. As just one more chess piece on this board, does it really matter why I do what I do?

"Even if you don't believe me, I'm on Touma's side. Me and you, we have both done things we're not proud of and possibly both for the sake of someone else.

"Do as you see fit; for I will be doing that too, no matter what."

Without warning, Touko vanished from Tsuchimikado's sight. As he looked around in alarm and for any traces of her he found people started to walk back into the general area, akin to situations like the 'Opila' runes effect being cancelled recently.

He didn't even feel the flow of mana change around him for any kind of spell (not that he knew if this effect was even caused by magical means), or even noticed that people around him have vanished. In hindsight, he should have immediately stopped talking with Touko and moved their conversation to a more discreet location, but it appeared she had taken care of the privacy issue herself.

"Damn it…" Tsuchimikado muttered. Being out manoeuvred like so might have meant his life was forfeit, should she have chosen to fight. 'Might', as nothing is ever certain or set in stone.

No point dwelling on past mistakes right now… he has a schedule to keep.

And a bullet to deliver.

-][-

-][-

*End Chapter 5*

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><p><strong>Author's Notes<strong>: I did buff up Terra's threat level in Touko's world, compared to Touma's version. It felt to me the newest member of GRS, Vento, seem to have given Touma more trouble than Terra did, and I didn't think that was quite right. Terra had been around for longer but still experimenting with his spells? Plausible explanations exist, but I didn't think it's _probable_. So I went ahead and made Terra a bit more of a threat. And considering Touko had more power back in her world, it's only fitting that her opponents gets a similar power boost to keep things somewhat even.  
>Wait for the flashback when she fought Acqua; now <em>that<em> was a hard battle, one where no magic wasn't as much of a advantage as Touko thought.

Trolling Fukiyose was just 'something I did because I felt like it – and it's funny', and is not anything important to the plot as a whole. My apologies if it wasn't entertaining, being the anime cliché scenario it is. I still find some of these clichés funny, despite it being used again and again.

Though I make no excuses for following tradition in the light novels by not writing much, if at all, about Himegami even when it's at sceness she's around (eg, scenes in Touma's class). To quote Volume 2 epilogue, Himegami is 'a tragic girl who can never be the female protagonist'; and well, I just prefer to write more of Fukiyose compared to Himegami *sweatdrops*


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Toaru Majutsu no Index or any of its related franchises, characters and such. This fic contains spoilers from the Light Novels, I advise all readers to finish reading those over at BakaTsuki before reading this fic to maximise your reading experience.

**Author's Notes**: Just checked, this fic's rating is still 'M'. I normally put my fic's rating at M anyway since I'm not too sure what's over the top or not, but in this case the M is well deserved. Something's going to happen in this chapter that will leave the rating firmly at M (there will be blood, oh yes), so if anyone's not comfortable with that kind of things then you might want to leave now.

For this chapter, I thank Mr. Kyon, Chaos2Frozen and Ashaman of Fire for their support. Without their help I might have taken another month to iron out the details and post this. Having people to ask for assistence and typing summaries out really help the flow of thought.

* * *

><p><em>Chapter 6 – Rage<em>

-][-

-][-

"So, back from another incident?" Touko asked pleasantly from the doorway.

A few days after her run-in with Tsuchimikado, Touma had finished destroying the Document of Constantine at Avignon and sent back to Academy City. He might be battered and bruised, but he made it out in one piece.

Touko made a mental note to thank Tschimikado for this later, even if he didn't help Touma because she had asked him to but because it was part of the job; not to mention Touma's his friend. But even so, she's still happy that her 'brother' was alright after facing Terra of the Left.

"Tsuchimikado told me you knew about Terra and Avignon from the start," Touma said in a subdued voice, even as he winced at how parts of his body are still sore.

"I did," Touko didn't deny Touma's words as he went and sat next to his bed on the sofa. "Sorry that I didn't bring a fruit basket or anything like that; all I've got is the handouts from class, considering you've missed a few days of schoolwork by now-"

_Stop trying to change the subject. _Touma's mental voice through the link surprised Touko, as it had a edge of anger to it Touma wasn't able to suppress completely. _If you knew what was going to happen, you could have at least told me about Academy City's attack on Avignon as well. I could have stopped Terra from being burned to death-_

_Wait a sec,_ Touko raised one eyebrow. _Terra was taken down by Academy City's forces? Just what the heck happened?_

Touma gave her a short summary of what had happened in Avignon, culminating in how missiles struck the Papal Palace and how the battlefield was engulfed in flames before he passed out. His gaze was accusatory towards Touko, telling her without words if she had given him foreknowledge then he might have prevented Terra's demise.

Touko's face was an enigma as she processed the information. Academy City's forces back in her world had left the Papal Palace alone, and burned the old city of Avignon to the ground after evacuating all the citizens. A outcome that, though she didn't know it, was the result originally planned by Academy City forces; and if Accelerator hadn't requested, no, demanded, the plans to be changed to prevent unnecessary destruction it would have still happened in Touma's world. Terra had escaped despite being bound up and his 'Execution of Light' destroyed, his situation similar to how Vento's 'Divine Punishment' was destroyed during the 0930 Incident. Touko thus suspected Terra had a few tricks left in his sleeve which enabled his escape – it was not like Acqua was spotted invading the area and retrieving Terra like he did with Vento.

_There was nothing you could have done even knowing Academy City was going to attack,_ Touko sighed and said back through the link. _I've seen the footage and the aftermath on TV; over a third of the Papal Palace was destroyed, and the entire place could have been burned down if it was the objective. There was nowhere you could have taken the fight to that Academy City wouldn't have been able to interfere either way._

_Besides, Terra's not dead._

"What?" Touma was so surprised that he verbalised his thought.

_Terra's not dead,_ Touko repeated. _Considering the attacks were only heat and kinetic impacts on a extreme scale, with Terra's Precedence Spell he's likely to have made it out alive with so few factors to defend against. It's not like Academy City brought Virus Bombs, nukes, or anything like that to kill off Terra, right?_

_I guess…_ Touma sighed, leaning back on his bed. He felt like a burden was lifted after knowing Terra wasn't dead. In all his previous battles none of his opponents had lost their lives in the process – unless you count Aureolus Izzard, with his mind erased somehow by his Ars Magna. Stiyl had said without his memories the person that was Aureolus is effectively dead and gone, and a new person have taken his place.

Touma didn't think too deeply about how that same logic could have applied to him. There was no point dwelling on things beyond his control, what mattered most right now is walking forward. People like Index depended on him, and it doesn't matter if Kamijou Touma had his memory erased or not; he's confident both the him before and after that moment would have done the same things, so it wasn't such a big loss like he's no longer the same person.

_Thanks, Touko. And I'm sorry for taking it out on you,_ Touma directed his thought over to his 'sister'.

"Apology accepted," Touko said gracefully. "Besides, I'm not mean enough to hold grudges towards a invalid."

"Does that mean you'll be thinking up ways for revenge once I get better?" Touma felt a sweatdrop form on the back of his head as he began to worry.

"Would I do that, dear brother?" Touko smiled. Touma was in no way assured by that smile.

"Touma!" a voice accompanied the door being opened. "They've run out of lemon soda, so I got you juice instead…"

Index saw Touko in the same room with Touma and froze, her smile began to slide off her face. Both of the Kamijous here remembered how Index doesn't seem to get along with Touko, but they don't really know what to say in this situation either.

The awkward silence continued for a few more seconds, before Touko said: "I've done what Tsukuyomi-sensei asked and brought you the handouts, so try and at least do some of it before coming back to school okay?"

"Eh? Ah, sure," Touma said after he realised Touko is making her excuse to leave to avoid being a bother, or making things difficult for him. Since Touma is in the hospital Index can't really stay at his dormitory alone (the silver-haired nun really didn't know how to use machinery like microwaves, so cooking – even basic recipes – was out of the question), so she tends to come with him and stay at the hospital. Touko doesn't have the heart to force Index to stay away from the one person she knows well in this city, and so she took her leave.

_It's not like anything we have to talk about right now is more important than his time with people of his world anyway, _Touko sighed. She seemed to be doing that a lot recently. In Touko's mind, she's a trespasser in a foreign world, someone not meant to exist here. She has no right to deprive Touma or anyone around him of their time being together – doubly so when in mere weeks he might never get a chance to be with them ever again.

Things like Avignon's aftermath can wait. What's left of that incident is no longer his concern, or a issue where Imagine Breaker is the solution to problems. Things have once again settled down to where there was no clear cause and effects. The situation right now is back to political wrangling, with deals and counter-deals being made and the circumstances ever in flux; it's no longer a situation where by destroying one item or defeating a certain person with Kamijou Touma's right hand will solve the problem. Talking about anything to do with the Magic Side or the Darkness of the world will only be a burden to him, when he cannot do anything to help at all.

The next time Imagine Breaker will be of use is when Acqua of the Back makes his move, and _that_ isn't something that can be prepared for… A Saint with the additional powers acquired from being a part of God's Right Seat, not to mention the experience from fierce battles that was on a whole different level compared to what she or Touma had been through. Both of the Kamijous have touched the Darkness of the world in only the incidents they were involved in, but Acqua was a man who dedicated his life helping many people to escape the clutches of that Darkness in the best way he thought was possible, never faltering in his ideals.

Even with help, this will be a tough battle. Touko just hoped the tragedy that happened in her world won't repeat itself here.

"'Why can't I take a side trip before I go back?' Misaka says as Misaka pouts and tries to put up a cute exterior," A child's voice whined somewhere close by.

"Yomikawa's worried about you," The Frog-faced Doctor's voice answered in response, shaking Touko out of her thoughts. "Shouldn't you at least go back and see her first before heading out again?"

"'She knows I'm alright, she has been visiting recently anyway', Misaka says as Misaka refutes the flawed reasoning," the voice, which now Touko identified as a little girl's and sounds familiar for some reason, said back to the doctor. "'Misaka #19090 has read there's some sort of special event at the amusement park in the Sixth District that will end today from her magazine, so this Misaka is anxious to go there!' Misaka says as Misaka tries to use crocodile tears as a means to her end."

"'Misaka'?" Touko wondered as she turned the corner to the hospital's main entrance/exit . _That way of speaking sounded like what one of the Sisters would say-_

_-So cuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuute!_

Touko suddenly brought her hands up to her nose, with only sheer willpower preventing what might have led to possible haemorrhage via nosebleeding. There, next to the Frog-faced Doctor, was the splitting image of Misaka Mikoto when she was younger in a one-piece blue dress that has white polka-dot pattern on it, and over that was a white overcoat not buttoned up. That ahoge, along with those dimples was a devastating combo just in the photos she was shown, but seeing them in the flesh was almost too much for Touko.

_Calm down, Touko,_ she mentally slapped herself as she forced herself to breathe evenly, not hyperventilate in such a way they can probably hear her on the other side of the hospital. If this was a different time and place, Touko would have said something borderline incomprehensible like _'omgomgomg SQUEEEEEE!'_ and then proceeded to tackle-glomp the mini-Mikoto while rubbing her face in the adorableness.

The fact this isn't Touko's world that had kept Touko relatively less eager to put her instinct to action and act upon her desire. But even not taking circumstances into account, there's something inherently wrong with what amounted to a total stranger come flying in with a tackle and then refuse to let go of you – a fact that Touko is trying very hard to not forget right now. But the temptation just won't stop nagging at her conscience, whispering how it's not wrong to indulge once in a while…

"Kamijou-kun?" the Frog-faced Doctor inquired upon seeing Touko who was leaning weakly on a wall, breathing heavily and her face looked flushed; signs similar to that of illness and fever. "Are you unwell? Did you overwork yourself recently?"

"I'm fine," Touko answered as she took a few deep breaths. "It's nothing to worry about – and really, the cause of this right now is probably more embarrassing than harmful."

Heaven Canceller looked dubiously at Touko who gave a dry laugh as she steadied herself.

"Well, try not to push yourself too hard," the Frog-faced Doctor sighed. "Your brother does that enough for more than one person already. I do hope you won't end up like him, winding up here at the hospital on a weekly basis."

"I'll try," Touko gave a noncommittal response, like she doesn't plan on putting much effort into that attempt. Or just didn't care what happens to her.

"'Are you really alright?' Misaka asks as Misaka indicate she's worried."

Both the old doctor and Touko looked down at the mini-Mikoto who looked curiously at the older girl, with a tinge of worry in her expression.

"I'm fine," Touko repeated, this time with a small smile. "Thanks for your concern, little one."

"'This Misaka's name is not 'little one'', Misaka says as Misaka puffs up her cheeks in discontent," Last Order pouted. While 'that person' calls her a brat, it was just a result of him being verbally hostile to everyone. Not even someone like him is mean enough to make fun of her flat figure like the tall girl in front of her might be doing, even if it is unconsciously implied.

And no, if anyone asks Last Order would deny she's channelling the Original's deep-seated worries about how her body grows.

"My apologies, then," Touko bowed her head slightly to show she's chastised, then knelt down to bring herself to look face to face with the small child. "May I ask for your name, dear?"

"'Last Order', Misaka Misaka replies," Last Order told Touko.

_'Last Order'? Definitely one of the Sisters then, it doesn't sound like a normal name_. Touko thought. Aloud, she said "I'm Kamijou Touko. Pleased to meet you."

"'Kamijou'?" Last Order tilted her head. The administrator of the Misaka Network silently sent a request for information to the various other Misakas connected, and it confirmed what she had thought moments later:

Their saviour, that spiky-haired boy who stopped the Experiment, doesn't have a sister. Judging from what the Frog-faced Doctor had mentioned earlier, her brother ends up in the hospital on a weekly basis, and the only one that fits that criterion from this hospital is Kamijou Touma.

Yes, the Sisters as a whole had been digging for info on Touma. It's only natural they want to know more about their saviour after all. They haven't gotten as much as they had liked from the accessible files though.

Something here isn't right, and Last Order wants to find out just what exactly is going on. She's suspicious about 'Sisters' that come out of nowhere, fearing that unlikely as it is, something similar to the Radio Noise project has happened again.

"Yes, Kamijou. Is there something wrong with my name?" Touko asked, not knowing the exchanges Last Order had been carrying out with the other clones.

"'Ah, no', Misaka says as Misaka tries hard not to show surprise," Last Order hastily said. "'Though this Misaka would like to ask if Touko-san is related to our savio- someone named Kamijou Touma?'"

"He's my brother," Touko confirmed Last Order's suspicions. "You're talking about a guy with black, spiky hair, and have a tendency to help others if they just ask, right?"

"'Yeah, that's him', Misaka says as Misaka nods her head furiously," Last Order said while in thought. She can use this. Last Order sent a message to the network to drop anything not critical and focus on finding out about Touko, or any experiment about their saviour in the Dark Side. It might be a futile effort as everything related could be encrypted at even beyond a Director's level and above their ability to hack, but they need to check regardless. They want to return the favour to the teenager who stood up and fought for them despite the odds stacked against him, and if they can stop a experiment based on him then they will definitely do so.

Meanwhile, she'll dig for things personally.

"'If you have time, can you talk with me for a bit? This Misaka wants to know a bit more about him', Misaka says as Misaka conveys her request."

"Well…" Touko does have time to spare. And spending it with a mini-Mikoto is definitely not a bad way to do so.

Though judging from how Last Order is talking, it appears Touma has got himself another admirer in one of those incidents that went differently to her world. First Index, and now Last Order… is the version of herself in this world really a lolicon that needs to have these impure tendencies brutally removed? She could go back to his room right now and…

"'Alright!'" Last Order smiled beatifically, grabbed one of Touko's hands and started to drag her towards the door. "'Then let's go, Touko-nee!'"

_Touko-nee…_

_Touko-nee…_

Touko's mind came to an abrupt halt after hearing the little girl calling her that, the words echoing inside of her. Last Order only called Touko that as part of her strategy to play being a 'younger sister' since some of the other Misaka's have read that's really effective at times – it worked beyond what Last Order has thought. She had considered calling Touko 'Onee-sama', but to the clones the Original is the only one they'll ever say that too. Nobody else deserves that title of respect.

Though in reality, being called 'Onee-sama' might have done less damage to Touko's thinking abilities…

Heaven Canceller merely told Last Order not to stay out too late, and returned to his work. He feels he can trust Touko to not let anything happen to Last Order, and will protect her if anything happens.

Thus, he wasn't around to see Touko suddenly stumbled into the ground outside the hospital, with a pool of blood forming despite no obvious wounds. That had scared Last Order quite a bit.

-][-

"Siiiigh," Touko huffed out exhaustedly as she flopped down onto her seat at an open-air café. Next to her, Last Order did the same and then slumped lifelessly face down onto the table.

Throughout this afternoon, Touko had been on a wild goose chase of sorts when Last Order decided at the last minute to change her plans of going to the amusement park to finding a 'lost child', someone who from Last Order's words is very important to her. Despite the ahoge antenna showing the person was close by several times, it appeared they had just missed that person.

_Still, it wasn't a complete waste of time,_ Touko thought. Not counting in the frantic running around at times it was almost like a girl's day out together, shopping for souvenirs and visiting cafés and other such things. During this time Touko had tried to get some information out of Last Order, but pieces of information were few and far between. She herself gave the standard cover-story of being Touma's sister she gave everyone else, though Touko can tell Last Order was only half convinced. Last Order right now seemed tired and a bit down for still not finding her target, but she had smiled a lot during this afternoon.

That alone made it all worth Touko's efforts, even if she'd never admit that. She's not a creepy stalker lolicon like Touma, damn it!

"You want a cold drink?" Touko asked, and from how Last Order murmured indistinctively with her face still covered by her arms it appeared Last Order had agreed. "Alright then. We'll take a rest here before continuing our search-"

"Excuse me, ladies," a voice interrupted Touko. "May I have a moment of your time?"

Touko glanced at the source of the voice, and Last Order also turned her head around wearily from where her position on the table. A few metres away was a teenager who's about Touko's age with sandy hair in a maroon suit that's not buttoned up. If the warm smile that looked decidedly wrong on his face didn't warn Touko something is not right with the situation, then the claw-like contraption he has on his right hand did. A normal civilian won't have that kind of accessory, the kind that looked to be more than just a fancy fashion statement.

"And you are?" Touko asked tersely, tensing and preparing for a fight.

"Kakine Teitoku," the teenager replied pleasantly – or as pleasantly as he could make it sound, his tone of voice unable to mask the potential of trouble he could bring. "I believe at least one of you have heard of me?"

The name sounded familiar, but Touko couldn't quite place her finger on it.

"'Ranked Number 2 of the Seven Level 5s of Academy City, Kakine Teitoku,'" Last Order recited, all traces of tiredness gone from her. In its place was caution, telling her to start running even though it might be futile by this point. "'He possesses the ability of-'"

"_Dark Matter_," Touko finished the sentence, finally connected the dots between the teenager in front of her and the documents she had read on the night she stopped the Level 6 Shift experiment. "And a member of the Dark Side of Academy City, if I'm not mistaken."

"Yeah, that's me," Kakine casually responded. "I would like to extend my invitation to #20001 here to come with me for the time being. I'm going to meet up soon with the guy you're searching for anyway, so it's not out of your way to accompany me."

"Thanks, but no thanks," Touko said bluntly as she stood up, placing herself between Kakine and Last Order. "I'd have to be crazy to let someone like you getting their claws onto Last Order."

"Hey now, you make it sound like I'm the lolicon here and not that white-haired bastard," Kakine said mockingly. "And you're saying it like you truly believe you stand a chance against me. You're just a clone of that no-name Level 0 who somehow beat the Number One with a fluke."

Last Order took a sudden breath, her gaze darting between Touko and Kakine. Touko didn't deny Kakine's claims. He shrugged, then continued: "Don't think that I'd fall into the trap of being too prideful, and be stupid enough to leave openings for weaker opponents to take advantage of. I'd take you seriously and grind you into the dirt like the fake you are-"

_**SLAP!**_

Touko backhanded Kakine, leaving a mark on his face – from where she is standing a few metres away. The telekinetic force of that blow was supposed to be strong enough to knock Kakine airborne, out of the café and onto the road; but Touko didn't account for white, glowing feathers appearing out of nowhere and dampening the force.

The fact Touko made a mark at all even with a Dark Matter shield indicated if she had tried this on a normal human she might have taken their head off; meaning either Touko is smart enough to go for overkill when facing Level 5s, or just wasn't thinking straight when it comes to protecting Mikoto look-a-likes.

"I don't give a damn if you're the Number Two, a Level 5, a genius or whatever," Touko stated coldly. "If you mess with Last Order while I'm around, I'm going to kick your ass."

"You bitch," Kakine snarled, not even fazed by the blow and gave off a murderous aura that matched Touko's own as she stared at him. "_Fine_. I show no mercy to those that stand in my way, so if you want to die so badly I'll oblige your death wish, then take that brat away from what's left of your cooling corpse-"

A twister descended from the sky, and gale force winds blown any bystanders that hadn't sought refuge from this fight off their feet and away. Debris was dug up from the ground and surroundings, which proceeded to batter away at the teenager who was trapped inside.

Touko shielded Last Order with her body even as she jumped back from the sudden attack, taking the smaller girl with her. While she did intend to use some more exotic tricks she had in response to Kakine's boasting, she wasn't the one that called down the tornado. The person responsible was someone else.

"Shut the fuck up, scumbag," a voice called out from above. "Let's just skip the trash-talk and go straight to killing one another, shall we?"

Like a angel of death, Accelerator in a white version of his trademark shirt floated down with four twisters on his back that allowed him to fly. His red eyes seemed almost to be glowing with the rage he's feeling towards someone that would try and use Last Order against him, and his arms held to the side like he's ready to rip someone apart with his bare hands.

The Number One of Academy City wasn't anything like what Touko remembered the one in her world to be like, in both personality and appearance. Accelerator here has a choker on his neck, wearing white instead of black; but what set him apart from his counterpart in Touko's world was the confidence in his ability and willingness to kill. He was nothing like the girl who was forced into the Level 6 Shift experiment by manipulative bastards who almost succeeded in breaking her mind when they could not break her body. Touko has trouble equating the seemingly psychotic killer here with the tormented and timid girl who shed tears of agony even as she slaughtered the Misaka clones.

"That _hurt_, punk."

With a BOOM, the barrier of wind was shattered. Six incandescent wings glowed with white light and broke apart the force of nature Accelerator manipulated like the proverbial hot knife through butter. Fluttering feathers of unknown energy formed around Kakine, forming a loose spherical barrier around him as he levitated up to eye level with Accelerator.

"No wonder you're the Number One, to be able to attack like that," Kakine said conversationally, like he wasn't threatening to kill another person mere seconds ago. Touko's existence no longer mattered to him now that his real target had shown up. "It's a novelty to have to struggle to win for once."

"For someone that has to take a hostage before coming to a fight, you sure talk big," Accelerator sneered. "If you needed to go after a brat to feel confident about yourself I don't have to tear you apart to prove I'm obviously better than you."

"Are you stupid? A fair fight is a fight where you die. Taking a bit of insurance is something that's expected in this line of work," Kakine scoffed. He then looked down towards Last Order, who was still protectively held in Touko's embrace, before turning his eyes back onto Accelerator.

"Now that you're here, I suppose I can leave the kid alone. If I eliminate you then there's really no more need to harm a brat for insurance-"

With a blast of wind, Accelerator shot forward faster than a bullet and tried to tear Kakine apart with his hands. Kakine soared up above with a similar speed, with Accelerator's response said louder with his actions than he could with words:

_The time for talking is over, and you can save it after I turn you into a mangled piece of flesh._

-][-

"'Let me go!' Misaka says as Misaka-!"

"No way," Touko replied as she hauled Last Order over her shoulder like a sack of rice, and ran as fast as it is possible under the situation away from the fight between two Level 5s. She wove in and out of the crowd, the sounds of clashing can be heard even now. The airborne battle was a sight to behold, beams of light rained down from the heavens while storms brewed to counter them. Streetlights were torn off to become projectiles, and glass shards fell down from broken windows that were the result of shockwaves. And among all that, the shining wings and feathers were dominantly visible.

Intellectually, Touko knew Last Order isn't Mikoto. She also knew full well that she's just projecting her guilt onto the current situation, that if she can protect Last Order she would have in some way made up a tiny bit for what she did to Mikoto back in her world. Nonetheless, she can't stop feeling those things.

She have no idea why a Misaka clone is worried about the Number One esper of Academy City, after what he did to them in the Experiment, but judging from Last Order's reaction that feeling was obvious. The emotional attachment between them seems to go both ways, if Kakine's plan of using Last Order as a hostage against Accelerator is any indication. Touko shook her head at how this turned out, the killer and victim caring for one another – if was the female version of Accelerator she fought, she can understand, but the albino male who looked like death incarnate was far from the type of person that seemed to care about Last Order.

Touko considered going back like Last Order suggested and help Accelerator, but decided against it. While Kamijou Touma had been someone that acted first with his gut feeling and thought about things later, Kamijou Touko was different. Born knowing she cannot afford mistakes and in a sense the world's safety is depending on her, instead of having the attitude of 'I'll worry about it when it comes, thinking too much don't solve anything' that Touma possessed, she chose to be careful in all her choices. She also acted on her feelings like her counterpart, but rarely without thought or disregarding the consequences.

To put it into perspective, Touma charged in to save Orsola Aquinas because it's unthinkable to do anything else, his morality refusing to accept anything else when there's even a tiny possibility he can change things. He knew that if Stiyl and others didn't show up, he would have been in deep trouble and yet still chose to challenge 250 battle nuns without knowing he had backup.

Touko, on the other hand, had a plan beyond that of a berserker's. Run in, grab Orsola, take down Anieze or whoever was in charge of guarding Orsola, then run away like the legions of hell are after you. Fight when you're sure you can win, run when you can't. The 250 battle nuns can't exactly openly give chase onto the streets of Tokyo, not without the police thinking there's been a riot of some sort by religious fanatics wielding archaic and bizarre weapons like swords and carriage wheels. Having less physical strength than her male counterpart, she relied more on quick thinking than brute strength, and used Imagine Breaker as a versatile lancet hitting crucial areas rather than just a shield or a bludgeon. That she had access to a way to negate attacks from a distance also helped, too.

The outcome might be the same, but the paths the two Kamijou travelled were different. Touko thought about things more, despite being as 'book dumb' in academics as Touma. She was more conflicted in reaching her decisions, but did so anyway and took the burden upon herself, even knowing this is a foolish thing to do consider what is at stake. That 'foolishness' came back to haunt her, after she bit off more than she can chew and thought she had enough power to do more than just her part.

She doesn't want to make the mistake of getting into fights she might not win again. Inevitably, someone always pays the price for her when that happens.

"We can't help Accelerator even if we go back," Touko told Last Order. "Believe in him."

Touko wasn't lying about not being able to help. Granted, she does have access to more esoteric attacks than just telekinesis, such as being able to rain fire down from the heavens or bend the world to her will and make her target endure the destructive forces of nature. Gale force winds of 200km/hr and thunder strikes almost on par with that of Mikoto's is nothing to scoff at.

But they always come with a price. Like the 'MP' system that you might see in games, she can't just throw out attacks like it costs nothing. Sooner or later she will tire out and unable to attack. What she's worried about most of all however, is _that thing_ which is inside her. The one that was responsible for bring her here to begin with. _It_ has been looking for a different power to not just match the one who defeated _It_, but one that can overthrow even the being that sat on the throne which the one who sealed _It_ served. Every time she used that ability which should have been natural to humans, she faced an intense effort from _It_ that sought to master the same ability through her and her Right Hand that lacked Imagine Breaker.

The price here doesn't refer to just the exhaustion, but corruption. A better description here might be 'consumed'. Faced with that, whether her ability will even be effective against Dark Matter and a personal reality that taints the world into arguably a different one is an inconsequential issue. Touko again felt the anger and worthlessness she has towards herself, that she can't do anything helpful without Imagine Breaker.

Sure, she can fight Kakine… but that's ultimately a victory in name only, one that leads to a battle in her favour at the cost of the war being lost. Last Order's goal of 'saving Accelerator' won't be achieved with Touko's aid, merely changing Accelerator's enemy from Kakine to another entity.

On Touko's shoulder, Last Order gritted her teeth. She knew that Touko does have a point – as far as she knows neither of them is likely to be able to defeat the Second Strongest esper in the city. Even if Touko might be a clone of Touma, there's no guarantee a repeat victory where a Level 0 can defeat a Level 5 will happen.

But that wasn't the point Last Order was trying to convey to Touko to begin with. Last Order knew Accelerator will win; she had no doubt about that. Her issue here is Accelerator will fall deeper into the Darkness as he tries to keep her in the Light. After finally finding him, she won't let him disappear from her life like this! He doesn't deserve this life of fighting for others and letting himself be devoured by the Darkness of the world!

He deserved better than that!

That thought in Last Order's mind was broken by a loud roar of rushing wind, and Touko instantly brought Last Order down from her back next to a building and shielded her from the blast of air that buffeted them both. The two Level 5s fighting flew down the road, wreaking havoc wherever they went. Falling debris from broken buildings, shattered glass, and blown off billboards littered in the area signalled their passing.

As those two landed in the middle of a four-lane crossroad further down, Last Order made up her mind.

"'I'm sorry, Touko-nee.'"

ZAP!

Touko gasped and collapsed onto the ground, feeling like she had been tasered.

"'This isn't about helping him survive. This is about freeing him from the Darkness, both the ones surrounding him and the ones in his heart.' Misaka says as Misaka conveys this is something she has to do."

Touko struggled to push herself back up, her limbs trembling as she did so. Even if she wasn't knocked unconscious, the paralysis would be more than enough to keep Touko from stopping Last Order.

"'I'm sorry.'"

With those words, Last Order ran towards the fight between Kakine and Accelerator.

-][-

_"I'm sorry, Touko."_

_Ignoring Touko who's battered, bruised and coughing up blood on the floor after being knocked flying half way across a bridge, the Railgun stepped forward and barred the path of her opponent that tried to finish Touko off._

_Tea-coloured hair, a statue-esque face, and wearing something like a blue polo shirt. He gave a presence of a soldier that has gone through many bloody battles. In one of his hands are a five metre long steel weapon that looked something like a hybrid between a lance and a mace, which given his muscular form it doesn't look too much out of place._

_Acqua of the Back. A member of God's Right Seat and also a Saint. Possibly the most formidable opponent Touko had ever fought up to that point in her life._

_"I know you told me to stay away, that this is your fight… but after seeing what he's done, I can't just let it go like that…!"_

_Misaka Mikoto spread out her palms, and two swords of iron sand taller and wider than she was appeared in each hand as the material was drawn to her by magnetism. She was enveloped by her power, electricity running over her like a suit of armour. Acqua's stoic face didn't change a in the slightest, even when facing the 3rd Level 5 of Academy City._

_With a fierce battlecry, Mikoto charged._

-][-

For but a brief instant, Touko saw Last Order's back as she ran away superimposed with Mikoto's image on that horrific night when her lover charged at a opponent she cannot defeat. That shocked instant was enough For Last Order to disappear into the crowd before the thought of telekinetically restrain Last Order to even occur to Touko. And now that the small electromaster is running through lingering people that was still shocked by what happened, Touko can't get a lock onto her as she needs line of sight. These people don't know where to go for safety, and when buildings could collapse on top of them but staying out here is inviting to have debris rained down on you, it's understandable that everyone don't know what to do.

With clenched teeth, Touko went to work on restoring her muscles from its paralysed state. Being with Mikoto so long means she had ways to get around that inconvenience with her ability; even if she normally used it on people other than herself, and it was when she can use that ability freely without worrying about _that thing _at all.

_Well to Hell with that!_ Touko thought bitterly. No bloody way is she going to let another girl run towards her death like that. She knows she's biting off more than she can chew – again – but it's unbearable to let Last Order to just die like that. Postponing _It_ gaining more power versus the life of another person, there's no contest on what she would choose.

Touko hated herself for refusing to do the best thing in the long-term, that she's unable to sacrifice one to save countless others from a worse fate - but she knows she'll probably hate herself even more if she chose otherwise. Right now she only hoped she can make it in time.

She has a really bad premonition about this.

-][-

Last Order burst onto the scene as the battle reached the end. Kakine Teitoku was in the middle of the road, his wings ripped off and stabbed through his body. Even after the Number Two got around Accelerator's reflect to deal damage to him, after Accelerator changed his calculations Kakine did not stand a chance. Even his own power was used against him, their vectors manipulated to direct it against himself.

The difference between the Number One and Number Two might as well be a impassable wall. Accelerator was victorious even as he protected people he deemed not relevant to his battle from the effects.

As for Accelerator, he pointed a gun down towards Kakine's still form as he leaned on a walking stick he picked up among the debris. With a single movement, he will end the battle here as befitting of a Villain.

"Farewell, scumbag-"

"'Stop!' Misaka says while Misaka is out of breath from running over here."

Accelerator turned one red eye turned to watch Last Order as she approached, as opposed to using both eyes like many bystanders are doing. There was something about the abnormal events that draws people to it, anything from a car accident to a murder crime scene. People congregate at such places even if it might be safer to turn and walk away.

"Get out of here, brat. This doesn't concern you anymore," Accelerator spat out while still keeping one eye on Kakine. "This isn't something you need to see."

"'I'm not leaving without you,' Misaka says as Misaka firmly announces her intention."

Accelerator finally brought both eyes onto Last Order, though he still kept his gun pointed at Kakine.

"'This Misaka refuses to walk away and leave you in the Darkness. You shouldn't be denied a place in the Light, not when you have done so much to protect others. Please, let it end with just this.'"

"That's not how a Villain does things," Accelerator growled. He still hasn't paid Kakine back for daring to bring Last Order into this mess. In addition, it's much safer to eliminate Dark Matter right here to prevent future complications. Pulling the safety back, he took aim to finish what Kakine started.

Last Order ran between him and Kakine, arms held to the side like she's shielding the person that tried to use her as a hostage.

"… Move out of the way," Accelerator ordered. Last Order only shook her head, staring back at him with determined eyes.

"'Misaka knows you're not a bad person. You don't have to do what you did in the Experiment.' Misaka says as Misaka-"

"There's a big difference between you lot and a guy that tries his hardest to kill you through any means possible," Accelerator cuts Last Order off.

"'But'-"

**BANG!**

A gunshot echoed out, making everyone flinch. Accelerator shot next to Last Order, missing her by maybe a few metres. The small girl was surprised, but stood her ground.

"I won't say it again. Leave, or I'll shoot you."

Accelerator had resolved to protect those close to him. For example, Yomikawa Aiho, the SISTERs, and Last Order who was standing in front of him right now. Even if he has to fight against the whole world, and even against those he must protect, he _will_ protect those people from the darkness.

Even if he has to be cruel as he is doing so. With his skills, he can easily make a wound that's not life-threatening with his gun. Accelerator already planned out a way to finish off Kakine – shoot Last Order's leg, she drops down and then he can use the unobstructed view to pump the rest of the bullets he had into Kakine's skull. Heaven Canceller can patch the brat up afterwards, he once said he can save her no matter what as long as Last Order is brought to him alive.

And maybe, even if unlikely, Last Order won't ever look for Accelerator after this. That would make things even better for him, cutting her off from yet another part of the Darkness of Academy City. He won't ever have to worry about this happening again, at least.

Last Order walked towards him, ignoring his threat from before. Accelerator narrowed his eyes, and began to take aim. With barely ten metres between him and Last Order, it's practically impossible to miss at this distance. The brat will go down, and everything will end like he wanted it to.

Eight metres.

Six metres.

_... What's going on?_ Accelerator thought. _Why can't I shoot?_

Last Order didn't waver from her path. As things are, even if Accelerator was blind he can probably had made the shot. Just pull the trigger, and it will all be done. But try as he might, his hand refused to squeeze the trigger.

"'Misaka is glad,' Misaka says as she finally reached you." Last Order placed a hand on the gun, and gently pried it out of Accelerator's hands. Even with a loli body, she's still part of the Misaka Network and how to handle guns is already part of the knowledge Testament machines downloaded into them. With no unnecessary movements, Last Order took out the bullets and rendered the firearm nothing more than a bludgeoning weapon at most.

"'You're not a Villain, this Misaka declares. You're a Hero, even if it's a different kind from _him_ – the only difference between you two is the methods used and where you can influence.'

'So please, don't think that your light is fully erased by the Darkness.'"

Last Order beamed up at Accelerator, while the white-haired esper only stared back in shock at the girl that seemed to trust him more than he ever did in himself. This was a experience that he had felt once before, on August 31st when she had picked apart his behaviour during the Experiment, how he had some decency left in him and showed it in a way that even he didn't know.

Last Order held out a hand towards Accelerator, like an angel offering salvation towards one of its fallen kin. Hesitantly, or perhaps subconsciously, Accelerator's hand slowly reached out in acceptance.

Their hands never reached one another.

-][-

Touko finally reached the scene that showed the aftermath of the fight between Level 5s, pushing aside anyone in her way roughly and without a single word of apology. The premonition she had only intensified as she ran, the few minutes between Last Order's departure and now was a confusing maelstrom of emotions where worry, hope and despair warred with one another.

And upon Touko's arrival, her worst nightmares was once again given form.

A shining wing that wouldn't have been out of place upon Archangel Misha's form stretched across the clearing, and embedded itself into the small girl Touko was after. Drops of blood that flew out of the wound went up high in an arc, and barely began their descent when Touko stepped out of the circle of bystanders. Accelerator in front of Last Order stood, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, with one hand outstretched like he cannot comprehend what had just happened.

The droplets of blood landed onto the cracked concrete, with more of that red liquid flowing down Last Order's side and staining her clothes crimson. With a sickening *crunch*, the wing exited the wound and retracted back to its owner's side.

"Haha… HAHAHAHAHA!" Kakine Teitoku laughed, his voice loud and tinged with madness as he got back up on his feet. "What is this? The brat came into the scene to help me of her own will? Ha, only if all of my 'Insurances' worked as well as this one!"

_No…_

The six white wings Kakine had spread out wide behind him, the one at his upper left still have its tip stained with blood. The Number Two himself is still wounded too, but he seems to no longer care.

"A 'Hero', she called you? Oh the irony. I don't know whether to be disgusted that the Villain I wanted to kill ended up being a sham, making me even more of a mockery that lost to someone like you… Or consider this par for the course: the Hero saves the day, defeats the Villain and forces of Evil… but can never protect the one thing most important to him."

_NO…_

"HAH! You spout all that crap about being a true Villain, but in the end you're one of those fucking Heroes? All that bullshit about having standards and what being Evil truly means, at the end that's nothing but lies! Salvation, forgiveness, the smiles of loved ones and the Light beyond the Darkness – those are unnecessary! Those of us who has fallen into the other side of this world don't need that at all!"

Last Order tried to speak, but no sound came out of her. Her efforts gave her nothing except more of her life being used up, more blood seeping out of her now as it flowed from her mouth and slowly moved down her chin.

With one last shudder, Last Order fell.

_**NOOOOO…!**_  
>"<strong>AAAAARRGH!<strong>"

Accelerator howled, bring his hands up to cradle his face. Two black streams of energy shot out of his back, destroying more of the surrounding buildings. The pair of wings that can be described as darkness given corporeal form gave a single flap, blowing up dust and sending many of the onlookers flying. The rest of them scattered, desperate to be away from danger. From Accelerator emotions flowed; anger, hatred, self-loathing – emotions so intense that you don't even need to be a telepath to be able to feel it.

And it was such a familiar feeling to Touko.

In the distance, sounds of helicopter blades can be heard approaching. To people in the know, those are 'Six Wings', unmanned aircrafts that Academy City have designed and can be lethally effective if necessary. BLOCK's mercenaries already found that out the hard way earlier today. Wheels screeched, and over a loudspeaker Anti-Skill forces ordered everyone to evacuate.

None of that registered to Touko. Not the sound of frantic movements by civilians doing as they are told, the armoured forms of Anti-Skills surrounding the area, or Kakine's own glorified monologue even as the three pairs of wings he controls spread out to dozens of metres long as he matched Accelerator in the murderous aura they both gave off.

All that was left in Touko's mind was Last Order's unmoving form, and a memory of the event that was the harbinger of the End of her world.

A memory of Misaka Mikoto, with her broken and unmoving body lying in the centre of a large crater. Above the crater looking down at her, Acqua of the Back raised his mace with a bored expression and was about to swing it down to put a end to what he called a minor annoyance.

As the mace swung down, Touko lost herself.

To whom or what, she doesn't know. Nor did she care.

-][-

-][-

Without regard to his surroundings, Kakine gathered his Dark Matter to him. A sphere of brilliantly white energy appeared above him, blinding the Anti-Skill as they cringed from the light. Kakine planned to destroy Accelerator with a single attack; he can play around with the finer points of this new level of power he possessed later.

"_DIE, ACCELERAT-_"

Splat.

The sphere of energy wavered, and then disappeared. Kakine stared disbelieving down at a spike that sprouted out of his chest. Someone pierced through his heart from behind, and did so by parrying two of his wings which would target anything that approached him and ploughing through a thin barrier of energy he had over himself as a last defence. The skill and power behind such a attack probably can't be replicated by many, even among the Level 5s of Academy City.

So who…?

Kakine's thoughts were cut down midsentence, as Accelerator's black wings came down on him like a guillotine. All six of his own white wings are shattered upon contact as he tried to shield himself, snapped like a dry twig which then faded away. It's a miracle the black wings doesn't then proceed to crush him into pulp with the force behind its blows, and only sliced away his arms and legs in two swift movements.

"G,GAH!"

For the first time since the fight has started, Kakine Teitoku felt fear. Unreasonably, the fear is not from the white-haired esper in front of him, but originated from behind him.

Kakine strained his neck to look behind him, his torso still not falling onto the ground for some reason despite he no longer have limbs to keep standing. There, he saw the reason for the fear he now felt.

The spike which impaled him was the tip of a long, sinuous tail, which gradually grew thicker as it approached its base. The black-haired girl that was with Last Order when he first found her was responsible for the attack, the tail that somehow grew out of her is keeping what's left of him at eye level despite no longer having legs.

Along with the tail, she had sharp scaly claws replacing her hands and feet – all of them the colour of old, dried blood, a deep crimson that suggested death and destruction rather than the vibrant hue of life fresh blood might give. Her eyes however were lighted up brightly, a malevolent scarlet glow which spoke of cruelty and revenge. Even as he stared, the scales around her limbs encroached over her like a living, second skin. When only her head is left uncovered, wings like that of a bat unfurled from her back.

With a flick of her tail, Kakine was slammed down onto the road. Moments before his end, Kakine did not even get the chance to witness the completion of Touko's metamorphosis. The Number Two of Academy City was then ripped to shreds by two predators, both fighting over his remains.

Accompanying the sound of claws tearing flesh apart and muscle crushed by fists that could shatter mountains, anguished and tearful screams echoed throughout the district.

-][-

-][-

"Don't shoot! I repeat, don't shoot!" Yomikawa Aiho, in full Anti-Skill riot gear, roared into her headset. "They're just kids!"

The PE teacher was around the scene of carnage when Accelerator fought another esper, and she was going to step in and stop Accelerator from executing his opponent before Last Order stopped him. She regretted, even as Anti-Skill arrived and she geared herself up, that she did not intervene herself – maybe Accelerator won't be this afflicted if she was the one hurt and not Last Order. And most importantly, the little girl wouldn't have ended up in this state.

Despite how things have turned out, Yomikawa still refused to go against her principle of never pointing weapons at people, especially children, they as Anti-Skill are meant to protect.

"We don't have anything that can do enough damage to them anyway," one of her colleagues yelled back, narrowing avoiding a piece of debris that flew past which would have taken his head off. He agreed with Yomikawa's conclusion, though for different reasons. "Even if we had an anti-tank round we probably can't even scratch them. Let alone the guns we're issued."

The 'them' he was talking about is the Level 5 with ominous wings the size of a small building, and the dragon he fought.

Yes, a DRAGON. The girl that interrupted a fight between two Level 5s and ignored Anti-Skill's orders to evacuate suddenly grew claws and a tail, then proceed to perform cold-blooded murder. If they didn't see the transformation with their own eyes, they would have never believed something you'd only see in a fantasy RPG game is right here in front of them.

Upon her transformation, the dragon swelled in size. The tail that was three times the girl's height no longer looked disproportionally long, now only about a third of the entire body length. Thin human limbs grown to be as thick as one of the windmills nearby, and the neck elongated to allow the head free movement to bite down upon enemies. The humanoid shape with dragon parts now instead looked fully dragon in proportion, further reinforcing the aura of terror and despair the head alone emanated.

Even with Accelerator's two black wings behind him, the dragon towered high above him. Those wings however is the only thing he had that's even larger than the dragon, each over twenty metres long, which the dragon's wings was only half of that length.

After the two of them worked together to carry out a gruesome end to their prey, they directed their full attention to each other. Screams of grief and anger from before that they emitted now turned into solely hatred, and they both went at each other with the fury that many here thought can't possibly be something humans are capable of.

Black wings cut wide gashes into the road and knocked down buildings, while red claws and tail did no less damage. Anti-Skill members in their navy-blue armour tried to hold a perimeter and contain the source of the disaster, but they were tossed aside in the midst of the battle and regarded as insignificant by both of the combatants; each blow they dealt towards one another created shockwaves, and the resulting gust alone was enough to keep others approaching them. Vehicles was overturned, and the Six Wings that attacked did no damage to the combatants; the bullets bounced off the red dragon's hide like it meant nothing, and those that impacted onto Accelerator was reflected back to shoot down the aircrafts. The back-ups that arrived in HsPS-15 powered suits did even less damage, as while having enough mass to not get blown away by the wind they possessed even less firepower than the Six Wings – and with but a swipe of the dragon's tail and Accelerator's wings, they're knocked flying into the air or driven into the ground like one would absentmindedly chase away insects.

When monsters fought, mere mortals can only run away or be caught up in the destruction. Such is the harsh truth of the world - those with power shake and move the fates themselves while those with none or lesser influence can do nothing against such brutality.

With both claws that served as hands grabbed onto the black wings to hold them in place, the head of the dragon swept down to devour the white-haired esper with jaws wide open. With a single fist Accelerator struck upwards, the uppercut carrying a invisible force knocking the head back and away. The wings ripped themselves off of the claws' grasp, then battered at the dragon like whips.

The red dragon snarled, and pounded both its claws at the ground. The earth shook, making Accelerator stumble and everyone else knocked off their feet. The red wings then fanned out and flapped, creating gale force winds that blown everyone away now that they couldn't stand their ground.

Last Order's still form was also blown upwards into the air, and she slammed right into Accelerator. Even in his berserker state, the albino had enough sense of mind to catch the little girl he cared about. His gigantic black wings folded around himself, as if to preserve the memory of the child in his arms while the winds buffeted uselessly against it.

"-wf_I_nr_am_dqzrt_sorry_pvrm…"

Tears went down Accelerator's cheek as he held Last Order close to him, whispering a apology he knows that solved nothing. He apologised for not being able to protect her, despite that being the driving motivation behind his actions in the Dark Side of Academy City. He had lashed out against Kakine and against that teenage girl who was with Last Order, the former for hurting someone he cared about while the latter for not able to keep Last Order away.

Fury built up inside Accelerator once more. In his enraged mind his hatred shifted from Kakine, who's no longer in any condition to take the blame, towards himself and that black-haired girl. Coherent thoughts are beyond his ability right now, but the sentiment is still there inside of him:

**Why didn't you protect her? She was safe, but due to your failure now she's not.**

**You will PAY for that transgression**.

Accelerator roared, his black wings spread out wide suddenly and stretched to their fullest. The wind that buffeted against him was forcibly taken over, and the air currents now converged at a point high above Accelerator. Buildings close to him was knocked down, and many more in the area crumbled with the winds violently gathering.

A blue glow began to form, which then instantly swelled in size until a sphere of plasma twenty metres wide appeared. Unlike that night in the industrial area however, the heat of 10,000 degrees Celsius was controlled and heat loss did not occur. This attack that can even rip through a nuclear shelter was given form once more, and this time on a target that deserved overkill just as the last person this was used against.

The red dragon was unfazed by the show of light and potentially destructive power, and opened its jaws wide. Light of a different kind to that of Accelerator's plasma began to glow from its mouth.

In the midst of this stand-off, Yomikawa shakily got back up from her position on the ground and limped towards Accelerator. Whatever she wanted to say and yelled on her way to him, none of it could be heard over the wind howling as more energy went towards the ball of plasma high above them. In the end, Yomikawa stood face to face against Accelerator, and hostility rolled in waves off of the white-haired esper. It's only due to an inkling of recognition and the fact Yomikawa came without showing any sign of aggression Accelerator allowed her to come so close, as in his awakened state throwing a attack that can fatally kill a normal human even as he holds the plasma in place is no problem.

"Damn it, what is it with boys that they never listen," Yomikawa sighed once within hearing distance. Despite certain death in maybe less than half a minute she still had a half-smile on her face. She pointed at Last Order held in his arms, and said: "Keep holding onto her this tightly and she'll suffocate. If you had paid attention to her instead of letting your temper run wild, you'd have noticed _she's still alive_."

The wind faltered, and Accelerator looked down. Bloodied and in tears, Last Order have been weakly trying to ask beg both him and Touko to stop their attacks. She didn't have any strength left in her to try and embrace Accelerator with her arms, so she settled for just leaning into him.

The Radio Noise clones aren't made to break this easily.

Watery, trustful eyes looked back up into Accelerator's own eyes that were clouded by rage. Relief flooded Accelerator's body, all thoughts of conflict overwhelmed as he suddenly collapsed onto his knees. Something that sounded between a sob and choking escaped his mouth, as the fact Last Order is still alive finally reached him. Above them, the sphere of plasma disappeared now that Accelerator didn't keep his mind focused on controlling it. The black wings, symbol of his madness, also disappeared.

Satisfied one of the aggressors has ceased hostility, Yomikawa turned and glared at the crimson dragon.

"I'll say it again: SHE'S STILL ALIVE!" Yomikawa yelled upwards, uncaring that the one she's trying to calm down is probably at least twenty times her size. The steadily increasing glow of light from its reptilian mouth faltered, and judging from how the dragon's eyes narrowed _It_ did not plan for that to happen. "I know you're still in there, Kamijou Touko! There's no point continuing this fight anymore! Calm down already!"

The dragon roared back in response, the wind forcing Yomikawa to step back once to avoid being blown off her feet. Despite being the focus of the death glare the dragon is now sending at her, Yomikawa didn't even flinch. All that hatred and anger focused in those eyes, yet there's some spark in them that's like a cry for help, a wail of sadness.

It's not the first time Yomikawa has seen that kind of eyes – she's came across kids that was the victims of some experiment or another, when she was tasked to shut down labs of those morally corrupt scientists Anti-Skill discovered. Granted, none of the previous cases involved the eyes being framed by a draconic visage that can't be described by anything else other than 'terrifying'.

Some of the other Anti-Skill members considering stepping in to intervene, but was held back by others. Yomikawa's principles of nor attacking kids with weapons might be called naïve and unrealistic by some, but her records was something that spoke for itself; she possessed one of the highest rates of success when it came to getting espers stop fighting each other or against Anti-Skill intervention. There's a reason when the 3rd and 7th Level 5s fought the first person Anti-Skill headquarters thought of to resolve the problem was Yomikawa Aiho.

"I know Komoe-sensei's kids are troublemakers, but I definitely didn't see this coming…" Yomikawa muttered, before saying in a louder voice: "It's alright now. Last Order will get out of this perfectly fine. I've called that Frog-faced Doctor to get over here as soon as I saw what happened.

"Let's go back. Back to Komoe-sensei's class, where you can mess around with those other kids like none of this ever happened. I'm sure your brother would be worried about you too."

The dragon flinched involuntarily at the mention of Touma – whether it was from fear or shame, Yomikawa can't tell.

"'Please…'"

Both the dragon and Yomikawa turned around to look at the source of the voice. Last Order feebly turned her head to face the red dragon, one hand slowly reached out. The small girl tried to repeat what she did before that would have brought Accelerator back into the Light if there had been no interruptions.

"'Please… Touko-nee…'" Last Order said in a whisper that probably wasn't even loud enough to reach who she wanted to reach. However, that was the best she can do at this point.

"'Stop…'"

The dragon snarled. Bestial, uncontrolled anger took over, and the dragon's head lunged towards Last Order, jaws open wide and a hundred times more horrifying than a shark's charge.

No more would _It_ be restrained by petty bonds of _Its_ current host. After coming this far, _It_ refused to be brought low again by its host and her willpower.

"Kamijou!" Yomikawa shouted, as the head flew above her and snaked towards its target. She tried to run back towards Last Order and somehow get her out of the way, despite knowing she won't make it. Accelerator glanced up, but his movements were sluggish and it looked like he was too drained after his previous efforts to do anything in response.

Everyone present was certain this would end as a tragedy, as nobody is left to stop the assured deaths.

Fortunately, they were wrong.

At the last second, the right claw of the dragon forcibly moved, charged with energy and ripped her/_Its_ own elongated neck apart. With a shriek of agony the severed head flew off course, its fangs gouging a path next to its intended target, dust billowing in its wake.

Everyone present didn't even get a chance to gasp at the event or recover from the shock when the main body of the crimson dragon writhed until finally it burst into black flames. With a shriek, the severed head of the dragon also began to burn, leaving only a wail that made everyone who heard it uneasy. The fire raged for a few minutes, the gigantic form of what used to be a dragon slowly diminishing. The smell of burned flesh did not accompany the burning, but that in no way lessened the impression of how the immediate area of District 7 currently looked like a post-apocalyptic world. Buildings were knocked down, roads were filled with cracks, and the various wind-powered turbines and streetlights are no longer left standing.

As the unnatural flames subsided, the black-haired girl who transformed into that large form emerged. She stood shakily, unaffected by the fire but looked both mentally and physically so exhausted it won't be surprising if she fell unconscious at any second.

She glanced around slowly, looking at the state of the city around her before finally resting her eyes on Last Order. The smaller girl tried to mouth something, but she obviously didn't have the strength to speak anymore. Nonetheless, the child smiled in such a way nobody could have mistaken it for anything else other than relief the black-haired teenager is back to her normal self.

Kamijou Touko then collapsed down onto her knees, tears of self-loathing and shame running down her cheeks.

The understanding that she had failed not just herself, but many others, _again_, was so heavy in her she did not even notice the Frog-faced Doctor who was finally allowed onto the scene.

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*End Chapter 6*

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><p><strong>Author's Notes<strong>: Yeah, Touko didn't meet Last Order in her world. Just thought I'd make it clear. Last Order didn't show up during the date, and since Touko and Imagine Breaker at full power didn't give Aleister any need to launch Artificial Heaven. The Hound Dogs never was sent out and Last Order wasn't forced to go to Touko for help.

I've removed Yomikawa's verbal tick here, since I thought they might detract the scene from its seriousness.

Next chapter will be somewhat of a breather. No intense emotions (not to the extent of this chapter anyway).


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